By Tatenda Chitagu
Zimbabwe has made history again for all the wrong reasons after being named as having the most expensive data in the world — at $75,20 per gigabyte on average, according to the latest global report by United Kingdom-based organisation, Cable.
In the report, data from 6 313 mobile data plans in 230 countries were collated and analysed by Cable.co.uk between October 23 and November 28, 2018.
They then calculated and made comparisons on the average cost of one gigabyte (1GB) and came up with a worldwide mobile data pricing league table.
The countries were categorised using a mixture of four small archetypes, namely excellent infrastructure and mobile data plans, broadband availability, data consumption patterns and the economic growth of the nations.
Zimbabwe ranked bottom, followed by Equatorial Guinea ($65,83 per 1GB) and Saint Helena ($55,47). Fourth from bottom is Falkland Islands, whose data costs $47,39 per 1GB, on average.
India, according to the report, has the cheapest data prices in the world, at $0,26 per 1GB, followed by Kyrgyzstan ($0,27 per 1GB) and Kazakhstan ($0,49 per 1GB) and Ukraine ($0,51 per 1GB).
Even though Zimbabwe had the largest data prices in the world, Sub-Saharan Africa also had some countries with the cheapest data.
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According to the report, 10 out of the top 50 cheapest countries in the world for mobile data are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“This is in stark contrast to the cost of broadband on the continent, which is almost universally very high or non-existent,” the report reads.
“Rwanda and Sudan feature in the top 10, with 1GB of data costing just $0,56 and $0,68 respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa also lays claim to the most expensive nation in the world for mobile date: Zimbabwe, whose average cost for 1GB of mobile data is an eye-watering $75,20.”
Commenting on the mobile data research, Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk said: “At the more expensive end of the list, we have countries where often the infrastructure is not great but where consumption is very small. People often buy data packages of just tens of megabytes at a time, making a gigabyte relatively large and, therefore, expensive amount of date to buy.”
