*In India, the total telephone subscriber base stood at 1,199.28 million in March 2024. Tele-density of rural subscribers reached 59.19% in March 2024.
* Total volume of wireless data usage increased by more than 10 folds from 4,206 petabytes in Q1, FY18 to 47,629 petabytes in Q2, FY24.
*Also, India is one of the biggest consumer of data worldwide. As per TRAI, average wireless data usage per wireless data subscriber was 19.47 GB per month in December 2023 from 61.66 MB in March 2014.
*India's 5G subscriptions to have 350 million by 2026, accounting for 27% of all mobile subscriptions.
* The value of export of mobile phones in FY24 increased by 42% reaching at US$ 15.6 billion.
* By 2025, India will need ~22 million skilled workers in 5G-centric technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and cloud computing.
* India ranks 2nd in "international mobile broadband internet traffic" and "international Internet bandwidth."
*The Union Cabinet approved Rs. 12,195 crore (US$ 1.65 billion) production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom & networking products under the Department of Telecom. On December 2022, 42 companies have committed an investment Rs. 4,115 crore (US$ 502.95 million) comprising 28 MSMEs and 14 Non-MSMEs (eight domestic and seven global companies) approved under the PLI Scheme. To drive the development of 6G technology, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has developed a sixth-generation (6G) innovation group.
*In Union Budget 2023-24 the Department of Telecommunications was allocated Rs. 97,579.05 crore (US$ 11.92 billion). Of this, Rs. 400 crore (US$ 48.88 million) is for Research and Development, Rs. 5,000 crore (US$ 611.1 million) is for Bharatnet.
*FDI inflow in the telecom sector stood at US$ 39.32 billion between April 2000- March 2024.
*The PLI plan for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing received about Rs. 4,700 crore (US$ 569.49 million) in investment as of September 2022.
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