INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Seems the recently-concluded ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 could not do for Indian telecom companies -- Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea
-- what Indian Premier League (IPL 2023) could
If you are wondering what the comparison is, it is in terms of mobile data consumption
According to a report in TheIndianSubcontinent (ET), the just-ended cricket World Cup may have boosted mobile data usage by over 4%
sequentially in the December quarter for the top three telcos, that will translate only into relatively modest sequential revenue growth --
at best 1%.Reason being: consumers invariably have large hunks of unused data, precluding mass upgrades to higher value plans
upside on-quarter for them as data packs, typically, tend to be under-utilised, which limits the possibility of consumers upgrading to
collectively reported 3% and 2.4% sequential growth in India mobile revenues in Q1FY24 and Q2FY24 respectively as per company data
Reliance Jio and Airtel is said to have reported 8% and 4.2% sequential growth in average monthly data usage per user to 25 GB and 21.1 GB
respectively, further helped by the rapid uptake of 5G
"Even without 5G, Vi had reported 3.82% sequential growth in data usage to 16.04 GB in the June quarter as feature phone users had upgraded
to 4G devices to catch the IPL action live," said the report
But do note that mapping digital viewership trends during the cricket World Cup 2023 with IPL 2023 is not exactly an apple to apple
Data usage during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 jumped in India's matches, while during IPL it largely remained the same across the
entire 2-month-long tournament
other top teams and the final, unlike during an IPL event where the viewership level was largely consistent throughout the 20-overs
Cup final set a new digital viewership record with 59 million concurrent viewers on Disney Hotstar on an average
