Covid impact: Rural India beats urban in mobile data usage

Kolkata | New Delhi: Rural India trumped urban areas in mobile data usage after the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown caused a shift in consumption patterns as migrant workers returned to their villages and rapidly used up their data allowances, senior industry executives and analysts said.

Although 60-70% of the migrants have returned to the cities after lockdown curbs were eased in the second quarter, rural mobile data consumption grew upwards of 30% sequentially in the April-September period compared with 15-20% for urban areas, contributing strongly to overall data usage levels.

This was also spurred by the country’s top two telcos – Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel – expanding their rural mobile user bases in recent months.