📊 Worldwide mobile data pricing in 2022

As global smartphone market penetration and demand for mobile services continues to grow, demand for mobile data traffic has grown by an average of 40% year on year in recent years and is also expected to continue to grow.

However, the price that comes with the provision of these broadband services differs based on a country's; economy, population consumption and broadband infrastructure.

Per a global average mobile data cost research carried by out Cable.co.uk, the average cost of one gigabyte (1GB) from over 5,000 different mobile data plans in different countries (233 countries) was calculated and compared.

These Techloy charts below give a close look at the most expensive and least expensive countries by the average price of one gigabyte (1GB) of mobile data.

In the category of the most expensive region in the world for mobile data, countries located in Sub-saharan Africa and particularly island nations tend to be among the most expensive. Five of the ten are located in Sub-Saharan Africa, and five are also island nations.

Conversely to the most expensive, in the least expensive category, only one of these countries is an island, and none of them is located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Israel tops the list of countries with the least expensive prices of mobile data. The country boasts a higher smartphone market penetration than the United States of America and has been a global leader in the provision of 5G. In comparison, much of India’s population relies on mobile data to get online, fuelling demand and hence keeping prices low.

North America tops the list of the average data pricing for 1GB mobile data with a $4.98 average price, followed closely by sub-Saharan Africa with $4.47.