A new report has shown that with the hike in data consumption brought about by the lethal second Covid wave forcing millions across the country to stay indoors, mobile users have been enjoying a far smoother download speed experience as compared to the first lockdown phase that was implemented in India last year.

The report suggested that average data consumption soared between 19.9 per cent and 22.7 per cent in the last three weeks of April alone.

"However, this time we saw little change in the average download speed experience, showing that mobile operators successfully prepared their networks to cope with the increased data demand by their users due to the latest wave of the Covid-19 pandemic," said the report by mobile analytics company Opensignal.

This, of course, highlights the fact that the mobile experience in India has been remarkably resilient during the second wave despite increased demand for cellular data.

During the first lockdown in March 2020, average mobile data consumption of smartphone users in India increased drastically, along with significant drops in their average download speed experience.

"We observed a sharp increase in the average mobile data consumed by our smartphone users on a weekly basis -- 26.8 per cent to 30.1 per cent higher than at the beginning of 2020," the report said.

The increased mobile data consumption lasted for six weeks between the last weeks of March 2020 and May 2020, before it gradually started to dip towards pre-lockdown levels.

Concurrently, users saw significant declines in their average download speeds -- up to 24.8 per cent, compared to the first week of 2020.

The average mobile data consumption and the overall download speeds experienced by the users returned to pre-lockdown levels between June 29 and July 13, 2020, "and remained more or less the same until the second week of February 2021, after which the average data consumption started to grow substantially," the report showed.