The growth of Mobile Internet in India is staggering: telecom operators are reporting growth of a few million a quarter, and over the last year, disclosures of data has become all the more granular. Idea Cellular's Mobile Internet business, in charts: 1. For the quarter ending 31st March 2014, Idea Cellular reported that it has 25.52 million mobile Internet connections, flat for the quarter, but notice the decline in 2G connections, and the growth in 3G. A switch might be in progress. 25.26 million data connections, of which 10.2 million are 3G. 3G connections are up 17.24% Quarter on Quarter. 2. Data connection reductions: 0.26 million data connections reduced on a quarterly basis and 0.94 million connections reduced on a yearly basis. Idea has set the benchmark for reporting mobile Internet connections in India by not including those connections that used up less than 1 MB for the month. This began last quarter, which is why you see the decline of 10.6 million 2G connections. In our opinion, this should become the norm. The lack of growth in the 2G base might be worrying, unless Idea is transitioning users to go straight to 3G 2. Data revenues are 10.1% of Service Revenue, up from 9.5% of service revenue last quarter, and 6.6% in Q4-FY13. Q2 FY14 was important, wherein Mobile Data overtook Mobile VAS, as a percentage of service revenue. This was largely due to the decline in VAS precipitated by TRAI guidelines, but the growth in the mobile base and consumption of data…
