Despite Gen Z’s anxiety and reluctance over talking on phone calls, data shows people are spending an average 960 minutes speaking on mobile phone calls per month.

businessline analysis of telecom regulator TRAI data shows this metric has risen sharply in the last decade and hit an all-time high in March 2024, primarily due to telco plans making voice calls free and hiking tariffs for data.

‘Minutes of usage for wireless services’ - essentially minutes of voice calls made on mobile phone networks - was just at average 638 minutes in 2014 and has risen each year to hit 963 minutes (pre-paid and post-paid combined) as of March 2024. Voice calls have stagnated in case of post-paid schemes and the growth is coming mainly from pre-paid.

Disrupting biz model

The uptick has been relatively sharper since 2017 when Reliance Jio disrupted the business model by making voice calls free and charging only for data plans; others followed suit.

As of December 2017, mobile subscribers spent an average 567 minutes per month on voice calls (incoming + outgoing) and this jumped over 9 per cent in 2018 at 622 minutes per subscriber per month by the end of that year. This further rose 12 per cent in 2019.

Simultaneously, average data usage on mobile phones is also at an all-time high. As of March 2024, subscribers used average 19.3 GB of data per month, TRAI data shows. 5G made up only 11 per cent of the total data usage with majority being on 4G.

The rise of voice calls is, however, not helping telecom operators with Average Revenue per User (ARPU) from voice calls sliding lower. As of December 2016, telcos earned ₹59 per subscriber per month from calls. This has now slowly dipped to just around ₹15 per user per month as of March 2024, as per data in the TRAI reports.

Tariff hike impact

Aditya Khaitan, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India, says the recent round of tariff hikes has nudged users to use data plans judiciously while voice services are free. “With over a billion subscribers, 64 per cent Indians also report to receive three or more telemarketing calls a day and that also has a huge impact,” he adds.

There is also a likely technological cause. “After the launch of 5G, there has been an improvement in voice quality but a deterioration in data connectivity. This may be leading to people preferring network-managed calls (on carriers) over calls made through data plans,” Faisal Kawoosa, chief analyst, Techarc, said. “It is a good sign but ultimately networks providing better data services will win in today’s times,” he adds.

Rural circles could also be contributing to calls volume, analysts note, while stressing that voice calls do not hold material business value for telcos anymore. With pre-paid and post-paid plans offering free calls and charging only for data, it just indicates network capability to handle call volumes, they add.