Worldwide Mobile Data Prices

<blockquote><em><a href="#409742">In reply to Minke:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>The BBC article points outs the research carried out by Cable.co.uk research "looked solely at SIM-only deals and included a range of packages from all the providers in each country".</p><p><br></p><p>Therefore your outlook of the USA market purchasing a part-subsidised phone along with a 12/18/24 month contract is not really applicable to the research.</p><p><br></p><p>That said, the subsidised model is buoyant in Europe too, and knowing the desperation of cellular carriers to retain contractual customers at the end of they contracts, a single phone call/web chat to the 'retention' team often results in a doubling/tripling of the existing data allowance whilst decreasing the monthly payment for a new contract. The result is often a crazy low price (&lt;$13) for 50+ GB.</p><p><br></p><p>Generally speaking though, with the yearly iterations of new phones having little to differentiate as compared to their predecessors, people would rather keep their existing phones for a number of years, and simply use a SIM-only option, hence the increasing prevalence of SIM-only options over fixed contracts, presumably why the focus of the research dealt with SIM-only.</p><p><br></p><p>In the developing nations where salaries are often a magnitude lower than the developed countries, the likes of iPhones and the Galaxy S range are at best aspirational (ed: iPhone aspirational ? An iNotch with a slower Intel LTE modem for &gt;$1000. Only those besotted with the part-bitten logo shall entertain such a device), where the emerging middle-class opt to purchase outright flagship-esque phones from the several notable Chinese brands and the SameSong Galaxy A and J ranges, plus the new M range, with SIM-only plans.</p>