Mary Meeker's highly awaited annual Internet trends report is out, and it shows significant movement due to Jio, so much so that it is adjusting for its impact in slides where it tracks mobile data prices in India. Moreover, it measured global growth in Internet penetration "ex-India" this year, presumably because the rapid pace of adoption may skew international figures. Here are some highlights from the report: -- The number of Internet users grew 40% year-over-year as of the middle of last year. This number was before Jio's launch, so penetration stats for this year, which will be in next year's report, may show much faster growth. -- Wireless data costs have sharply reduced, with the annualized cost of 1GB a month reducing to $23 (~₹1500). For the first time in Q1 of this year, this cost is less than 2% of India's GDP per capita, which the report says is the threshold for widespread affordability. Since this estimate excludes Jio itself, and some telecom mergers are pending, this figure may sharply reduce further as competition gears up. -- The number of broadband subscribers (defined as anyone with a wired or wireless connection faster than 512Kbps) has risen sharply. The first quarter of this year had 85% more subscribers than the same period in the previous year. The report also says that data-intensive apps like video streaming services have also seen increased adoption, with Hotstar's daily active users quadrupling in the last year. -- E-commerce competition is heating up, with…
