IMC 2025: India’s Telecom Sector in Five Words

With India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2025 now behind us, it’s worth taking a step back and asking the one question I didn’t include in my last blog. What did we learn? 

As always, anyone’s takeaways will be defined by their focus. That said, having wandered the exhibits and sessions for three days, I can sum up my impressions and learnings with a handful of concepts.  

• Swadeshi. Unless you’re an Indian history buff, this is likely a term you aren’t familiar with. I wasn’t aware of it until I saw it plastered on a large share of IMC booths. Dating back to the anti-colonial campaign of the early 1900s, it translates roughly as “self-sufficiency” or “self-reliance.” In the context of the Indian telecom market circa 2025, that results in an ecosystem – operators and vendors alike – developing its own solutions. Think AI models. Think base stations. Think radios and antennas. Think “Make in India” and the country’s 4G stack. Is there a domestic market for these solutions? Sure, especially if mandated/encouraged by national authorities. Is there a global market? That’s trickier. Costs and quality will be a driving factor, and this is where supporters expect India’s engineering prowess will shine. But sales and marketing also need to be spot-on given the competitive nature of the space. Getting this all aligned won’t be simple. Positioning itself as a champion of the Global South and selling into less-developed countries would pit it against the likes of ZTE and Huawei but might be the best strategy. 

   

• 6G. This is essentially an extension of the last theme – sorry, not sorry. As India gears up for a self-reliant telecoms future, it makes sense to focus on today’s opportunities in 4G and 5G. The foundational technologies and IPR that drive those, however, are already sewn up by folks outside India. 6G, meanwhile, is still in its development stage. This is why India has set out a goal to secure 10% of global 6G patents with an expectation of 6G contributing $1.2 trillion to the country’s GDP by 2035. It’s also why IMC saw the Bharat 6G Alliance sign MOUs with NASSCOM (India’s IT Services Association) and the European Space Agency and released a Joint Statement on the future of 6G alongside research groups like ATIS’s Next G Alliance, XGMF, 6G Forum, 6G Brazil, UKI-FNI, UK TIN, and the UK Federated Telecoms Hubs. As an extension of the last concept, there’s a question of how achievable this is. By all accounts, India’s share of 5G patents it low. 6G’s stronger focus on software and AI might benefit the country, but that’s far from assured and as much a function of negotiating standards organizations as generating useful R&D. 

   

• Usage Gap. In a country that proudly boasts 99% mobile broadband coverage and some of the world’s highest mobile data usage, it might be assumed that the usage gap in India is negligible. That’s far from the case. 10 years ago, 85% of connections were on 2G. We expect 2025 to end with that figure below 5%, while 4G and 5G make up virtually all of the remainder. This is an incredible feat. And yet, 47% of the population is still not using the mobile Internet. If we focus on adults only, the figure drops to 36%. Given the size of the country, this means India has the greatest usage gap in absolute terms (number of people) by a large margin. Satellite Internet will not solve for this; the price tag for consumers (services and devices) is generally too high. The fixed wireless technologies in IMC booths might. Regardless, with incredible aspirations for India’s digital future, this is obviously a problem; for all the network innovation, enterprise transformation, and start-up enthusiasm on display at IMC, uneven use of the mobile Internet threatens to keep India from executing on its potential. 

   

• ARPU and Affordability. Across all markets, service affordability is one component contributing to the usage gap. And, sure enough, ministers at IMC were quick to note how mobile data costs in India have fallen by 98% on a per MB basis. What does that look like in ARPU terms? 2025 ARPU ($2.44) is marginally lower than it was back in 2015 ($2.51). Now, this is up by 30% over the 2020 figure. Still, when talking with operators, they might be proud of all the people they’ve connected thanks to keeping service prices down, but they’re also concerned about the long-term sustainability of keeping prices low. Of course, you can generate profits off low ARPU if you keep costs in check. Here, Jio’s call out to a strategy of leveraging a single FWA CPE over up to 7 users is a good example of local innovation but greater pricing flexibility would obviously be welcome. 

   

• China and USA. I could have replaced this one with the more vanilla “geopolitics” but there’s really no point in being intentionally vague. From an international supply chain perspective, India is at the nexus of some key opportunities and challenges. US tariffs and actions against China could well play into its favour, especially as it looks for foreign markets to push its homegrown kit. Shifting iPhone manufacturing to India from China, however, has already been met with pushback and it’s unlikely that anyone other than small US operators would deploy gear from relative newcomers. Separately, if anyone thinks that shifting global tensions would open up opportunities for Chinese suppliers in India, Make in India aspirations tell you how open the country is likely to be.