56 Percent Smartphone Users in India Have No Data Access at Least Once a Day: Survey

Despite the massive growth in mobile data usage in the past eight months in India, 56 percent of smartphone users have no access to Internet at least once a day, a new report said on Monday.

According to a report compiled by True Balance mobile app, the data connectivity environment is still poor, leading to devices being exposed to offline environment on large.

"We have found that across India, the connections are patchy and users often find gaps in network coverage depending on their location,"said Alex Suh, General Director of Data Analysis, True Balance, in a statement. "This is why despite the mobile data usage in the country increasing significantly, there is still prevalence of users found experiencing offline state in a day. While the data connectivity issue has improved considerably since last year, there is still scope to address the main issues behind poor connectivity and get these numbers further down."

Mobile data usage in India has quadrupled in eight months as the competition grew among various telecom operators who offer unlimited data tariff plans. Yet, 11 percent of users stay offline for more than 24 hours, the report added.

The report also revealed that users who use the mobile data online for 24-hours were just 7 percent in July 2016 and now that number has increased to 44 percent as of April 2017.

True Balance app supports inquiry and charge of prepaid mobile usage credit. It was introduced back in 2014 and it claims to have more 40 million downloads till date.