A research by Cable.co.uk has revealed that Ghana has a more affordable data pricing index than Nigeria for a period of two months.
The Worldwide Mobile Data Pricing 2021 report from Cable.co.uk, which surveyed some 230 countries on the affordability of data, ranked Nigeria as 43rd behind Ghana (27th), Sudan (fifth globally) and, Libya (30th), Tanzania 32nd and Mauritius (33rd).
This reveals that data costs in Nigeria are relatively expensive compared to Ghana and other African countries, though Nigeria had continually retained the tittle ‘Giant of Africa'.
The study showed that the average price of 1GB data in Ghana is $0.66 (N251.46) while in Nigeria, it goes for $0.88 (N335. 28).
The study also rated the most expensive 1GB data in local currency in the countries. In Ghana, 1GB of data costs at most 20 cedis while in Nigeria, it costs N2,000.
Consumer Telecoms Analyst at Cable.co.uk., Dan Howdle, observed that many of the cheapest countries in which to buy mobile data 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.
He said, “Countries with long-established, ubiquitous 4G or new 5G infrastructure tend to fall towards the cheaper end of the table. This is because mobile data plans have escalated far beyond the 1-10GB per month median, offering instead plans with caps in the hundreds of gigabytes, or even completely unlimited. The cost per gigabyte in these countries will tend therefore to be very low.”
He also said wealthy nations tend to have a good mobile infrastructure, decently-sized data caps and relatively healthy markets.
Meanwhile, the study noted that Sub-Saharan Africa still has the most exorbitant data prices in the world.
However, neither Nigeria nor Ghana falls on the rung of countries with the most expensive or extremely cheap mobile data prices.
The region hosts six of the world’s 10 prohibitive for 1GB of mobile data, including the highest-priced, Equatorial Guinea, as Sudan was noted as the only African country among the top 10 cheapest around the globe, selling 1GB of mobile data at $0.27 on the average.
The report compares the cost of 1GB of mobile data across 6,148 mobile data plans in the sampled nations. South Africa ranked 136 with the average price of 1GB fixed at $2.67.
Its findings in the region showed that the average price for 1GB of mobile data was around $6.44. The next most expensive was Oceania at $5.51 and then South America at $5.25.The information was gathered and analysed by Cable.co.uk between December 2020 and February 2021.
The SSA region also has some of the priciest data in the world, with Equatorial Guinea the most expensive ($49.67) in 230th place. It is followed by Saint Helena ($39.87), São Tomé and PrÃncipe ($30.97), Malawi ($25.46), Chad ($23.33) and Namibia ($22.37) at the bottom of the table.
On the other end of the spectrum is North Africa with the cheapest regional average of just $1.53 per GB. All but one of the seven North African countries is in the affordable rung of the table.
Algeria is the cheapest in the zone at $0.51 per GB and 16th in the world. Its most expensive country was Mauritania ($5.56), the only nation on the axis to exceed the global average of $4.07.
Israel came out as the cheapest country in which to buy mobile data, with an average cost of 1GB at a meagre $0.05. The most expensive, Equatorial Guinea, was nearly a thousand times more expensive with 1GB costing $49.67.
Reviewed by Apeh Matthew
on
April 29, 2021
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