Airtel remains bullish on data. It believes that the data traffic is likely to increase 12 fold from 2015-2020.
Bharti Airtel currently has ~154k towers; ~70% of these also have 3G/4G BTS?. Focus on mobile data can be highlighted from the fact that out of the 67k BTS? deployed in FY16, 90% were 3G/4G. Airtel plans to double the existing cell sites over the next 3 years. Importantly, it plans to deploy 100k solutions including WiFi hotspots, small cells and indoor solutions for improving the indoor data experience where bulk of the data gets consumed.
India has an established base of 184m smartphones at the end of CY15 (~25% of the physical base). Data is currently primarily an urban phenomenon accounting for 72% of the total internet user base. Rural though is also growing rapidly (89%yoy in CY15).
