Better internet speeds are keeping Indian smartphone users up all night

Several Indian telecom companies are offering incentives to use internet from midnight to wee hours of the morning, forcing Indian smartphone users to increasingly go online in those hours.

These offers have existed for a long time but only 1% of data was being consumed by users post midnight. However, after Jio’s commercial entry last September, there has been a mammoth rise in such offers as data usage in these hours has gone up to 10-15%, as per Counterpoint Research.

By the time this financial year ends, the usage might have crossed 20%, say industry experts.

"The success of night calling plans has led the operators to come up with night exclusive plans, which was initially influenced by Jio," Satyajit Sinha, research analyst for mobility and Internet of Things at Counterpoint told ET. "And at the same time, the biggest challenge for an operator is not only to increase the subscriber base but also to provide customer satisfaction to existing consumers by updating plans frequently, so they don't port to other competitors."

The rise in offers was triggered by Jio's night plan it offered from December to March, giving free and unlimited data between 2 am and 5 am along with a 1GB a day plan. This led to rival telcos, viz. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, to come up with their own night plans.

"We hope that this will have a positive impact on the overall network experience during the day/peak-hours as Happy Hours can help shift some of the non-urgent data traffic to non-peak hours and help reduce congestion," said Ajai Puri, director, operations (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel.

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