Mobile data traffic in India last year increased 74 per cent, with 3G accounting for more than half of usage since September, according to a report by Nokia Networks.

The company’s new MBit index, which looked at the traffic generated by both 2G and 3G broadband services, found 3G usage jumped 114 per cent while 2G data traffic grew 41 per cent between January and December last year.

3G traffic represented 52 per cent of total data consumption in December compared to 42 per cent in January 2014. An average 3G user consumed 3.2 times more data than a 2G user.

On average 3G data usage per person increased to 688MB per month, up 29 per cent, and 2G data use rose to 216MB per month, a 48 per cent jump. The study said use of 3G devices able to support a speed of up to 21.1Mb/s increased from 23 per cent in 2013 to 54 per cent last year.

Nokia Networks noted that India has about 130 million active 3G capable devices but only 69.9 million subscribers are active 3G users. And although 4G in the country is in its infancy, India already has 5.5 million 4G capable devices but only about 85,000 subscribers are active LTE users.