Mobile data usage and revenue for 35 countries
This is tefficient’s 17th public analysis of the development and drivers of mobile data.
Mobile data usage is still growing in all of the countries covered by this analysis. The growth rates are very different and so are the usage levels. Finland tops the charts in usage – but not in growth.
Data-only is a clear driver of usage. Austria emerges as the fixed-line substitution leader. In Korea, the share of data traffic on 4G has now effectively reached 100%. In mature markets, the 4G upside on data usage is mainly a thing of the past.
A prerequisite for continued data usage growth is that the total revenue per gigabyte is low.
This is not the case in Greece, Canada, Belgium, Germany and Czechia. The total revenue per gigabyte here is roughly 20 times higher than in Finland. Of these countries, Canada stands out with its combination of low data usage and high ARPU.
In this analysis we introduce the Christmas tree visualisation to see where the more-for-more initiatives of operators can balance the more-for-less erosion.
This short video introduces the overall findings:
https://youtu.be/rP0r-MOWTL8
Download analysis: tefficient industry analysis 3 2017 mobile data usage and revenue 1H 2017 per country – updated 24 January 2018
This analysis focuses on 35 countries. We have issued a separate public analysis that compares mobile operators here.