at 9.8GB/month: Report New Delhi: India has the world’s highest data usage per smartphone at an average of 9.8GB per month, a new report by Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson said, adding this will double to 18GB by 2024, fuelled by rich video content.

North East Asia comes second with 7.1GB per month while West Asia and Africa region is the lowest at 3GB per month, the report for year 2018 said. Improved device penetration, affordable data tariff plans, and increase in data-intensive content such as videos are driving this growth in India," Nitin Bansal, head of Ericsson India and head of network solutions, South East Asia, Oceania and India, said at the launch of The Ericsson Mobility Report on Wednesday.

Triggered by Reliance Jio’s entry in September 2016, India’s data consumption has exploded, with all other operators also offering cheap data tariffs. Mobile data traffic is growing as more Indians spend time streaming videos, which is expected to account for 75% of overall mobile traffic by 2024.