With the swift growth of online services, data has become vital for worldwide users. But for Singaporeans, at least 6GB of data is what they need on a monthly basis, as per a survey.
The survey, conducted by Circles.Life, the Lion City's newly established telecom operator, reveals that half of its 900 respondents can only last one day without data and 90 percent believe that data is important to their daily lives. While average data usage among Singaporeans is somewhere between 3 to 5GB, two-thirds of the total respondents consider the need for at least 6GB of data each month.
Furthermore, the study points out that most of the mobile users in the city become "frustrated" when their data plan reaches end limit. This is quite presumable as most of the frequently used apps by the respondents -- including WhatsApp and Instagram -- consume mobile data over Wi-Fi.
Circles.Life claims that Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the most used app by Singaporeans, whereas the official Facebook app comes at third, following the built-in video calling support on mobile devices. Also, the survey found that 92 percent of respondents -- consist of people between 16 to 54 years of age -- check their smartphones nearly ten times a day.
Similar trends around the globe
Singapore is not the only city to have the thrust for mobile data. According to a recent Ericsson Mobility Report, monthly data consumption on an average is 5GB per month that is expected to hit 26GB in the US by 2022. The quarterly report released in June also highlighted that LTE subscriptions reached a total of 2.1 billion worldwide in the first quarter.
Developing regions like India also have comparable results. Ericsson's report mentioned that data traffic per active smartphone in the country was 4.1GB in 2016, which would grow 18 percent to 11GB in 2022. Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers in a separate report stated that as high as 80 percent of all web traffic in the Indian market emerges from mobile devices. Of the total time spent on mobile screen, Indians reportedly pass 34 percent of their daily time for searching the Web and using social media and messaging apps.
