How mobile data costs compare around the world
If you have a monthly mobile phone plan you may not think too much about the price you pay for mobile data. However, comparison site cable.co.uk has been looking at mobile data costs around the world with some surprising results.
The United States is one of the most expensive developed nations for purchasing mobile data, coming in 188th in the world, with an average 1GB cost of $8.00 -- well above the global average of $5.09.
At the other end of the scale India tops the list as the cheapest country in which to buy mobile data, with the average cost of 1GB at a US dollar equivalent of $0.09. The UK ranks at 59th in the world, with 1GB of mobile data costing an average of $1.39.
The South Atlantic island of Saint Helena is the most expensive place in which to buy mobile data -- no wonder Napoleon didn't like it much -- the average cost of 1GB there is $52.50 or 583 times the average cost in India.
Seven of the top 20 cheapest countries are in Asia, with Sri Lanka and Vietnam joining India in the top ten. Former Soviet Bloc nations are well placed too with the third, fifth, sixth and ninth cheapest countries being Kyrgyzstan in third place overall, followed by Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia respectively.
Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, says:
Many of the cheapest countries in which to buy mobile data fall roughly into one of two categories. Some have excellent mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure and so providers are able to offer large amounts of data, which brings down the price per gigabyte. Others with less advanced broadband networks are heavily reliant on mobile data and the economy dictates that prices must be low, as that’s what people can afford.
At the more expensive end of the list, we have countries where often the infrastructure isn’t great but also where consumption is very small. People are often buying data packages of just a tens of megabytes at a time, making a gigabyte a relatively large and therefore expensive amount of data to buy. Many countries in the middle of the list have good infrastructure and competitive mobile markets, and while their prices aren't among the cheapest in the world they wouldn’t necessarily be considered expensive by its consumers.
You can download the full set of data from the cable.co.uk site.
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