{"id":74566,"date":"2014-11-26T23:55:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=74566"},"modified":"2014-11-27T08:07:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T06:07:33","slug":"sa-mobile-and-data-costs-vs-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/74566\/sa-mobile-and-data-costs-vs-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"SA mobile and data costs vs the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ITU’s Measuring Information Society report shows which countries in the world are leading the way in terms of ICT development and costs – and where South Africa fits into the global picture.<\/p>\n

According to the report, South Africa’s information and communication technology<\/span> costs are quite rich when compared on a global scale, ranking 93rd out of 166 countries – while the country’s ICT development status has declined from a year ago.<\/p>\n

In terms of overall ICT development, South Africa is ranked 90th in the world, down one position from 89th in the 2013 report.<\/p>\n

This is expressed in the ICT Development Index (IDI) which measures 11 indicators across 3 sub-indices: access to ICT, intensity of use, and ICT capability and skills in a country.<\/p>\n

South Africa ranks highest in terms of its ICT use (82nd out of 166 countries), and lowest in terms of ICT accessibility (92nd).<\/p>\n

South Africa ICT Development<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Index<\/strong><\/td>\nGlobal Rank<\/strong><\/td>\nScore<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Overall<\/td>\n90<\/td>\n4.42<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Access<\/td>\n92<\/td>\n4.82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Use<\/td>\n82<\/td>\n2.75<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Skills<\/td>\n86<\/td>\n6.98<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Its IDI values fell short of the global average (4.77), with only Mauritius (the top African nation) and Seychelles managing to beat the average score.<\/p>\n

South Africa, along with Cape Verde and Botswana did however,\u00a0 manage to achieve a higher value than the developing-country average (3.84).<\/p>\n

\"Africa<\/a>

Africa IDI<\/p><\/div>\n

Denmark was ranked as the most ICT-developed nation in the world, followed but the Republic of Korea and and a large number of highly developed European countries.<\/p>\n

Top 10 countries for ICT<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/strong><\/td>\nCountry<\/strong><\/td>\nIndex score
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nDenmark<\/td>\n8.86<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nRepublic of Korea<\/td>\n8.85<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nSweden<\/td>\n8.67<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nIceland<\/td>\n8.64<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nUnited Kingdom<\/td>\n8.50<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nNorway<\/td>\n8.39<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nNetherlands<\/td>\n8.38<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nFinland<\/td>\n8.31<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nHong Kong<\/td>\n8.28<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nLuxembourg<\/td>\n8.26<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

ICT costs<\/h3>\n

The ITU report also measured the cost of ICT across the world, looking specifically at fixed-line telephony, mobile cellular and fixed broadband prices, expressed as a percentage of gross national income per capita (GNI p.c.).<\/p>\n

On a global scale, South Africa again ranks in the middle to low reaches of the index, ranking 93rd, overall, with the taken price basket of ICT prices costing 3.2% of the country’s GNI per capita (US$7,190).<\/p>\n

On average, South Africans pay 2.9%-3.4% on ICT in the country.<\/p>\n

South Africa ICT baskets<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Basket<\/strong><\/td>\n% of GNI p.c.
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ICT price basket<\/td>\n3.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fixed line basket<\/td>\n3.3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mobile basket<\/td>\n3.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Broadband basket<\/td>\n2.9%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Breaking it down, South African fixed-line and mobile telephony proves to be comparatively costly, ranking 119th and 103rd, respectively.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s best ICT access point was fixed-line broadband, which ranked 75th, overall, followed by 1GB of prepaid mobile broadband, which ranked 76th, overall.<\/p>\n

However, the global comparison doesn’t necessarily translate to the most affordable in a local context.<\/p>\n

The same prepaid mobile broadband package that ranked 76th is also the most expensive measure listed by the ITU, costing 4.82% of the taken GNI per capita – or over 51 International (PPP) dollars.<\/p>\n

Post-paid mobile broadband, using 500MB of data, meanwhile, is the country’s cheapest ICT access point, costing ‘only’ 2.58% of the taken GNI per capita (ranked 91st, globally).<\/p>\n

The table below lists the ranked South African packages on the given GNI per capita of $7,190<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Product<\/strong><\/td>\nGlobal rank
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		% of GNI p.c.
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		US$<\/strong><\/td>\nPPP$<\/strong><\/td>\nNotes<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fixed-line<\/td>\n119<\/td>\n3.25%<\/td>\n$19.49<\/td>\n$34.51<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mobile<\/td>\n103<\/td>\n3.40%<\/td>\n$20.40<\/td>\n$36.12<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fixed-line broadband<\/td>\n75<\/td>\n2.85%<\/td>\n$17.09<\/td>\n$30.26<\/td>\n1Mbps, 5GB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Post-paid mobile broadband<\/td>\n91<\/td>\n2.58%<\/td>\n$15.43<\/td>\n$27.33<\/td>\n500MB data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Post-paid mobile broadband<\/td>\n94<\/td>\n4.30%<\/td>\n$25.79<\/td>\n$45.67<\/td>\n1GB data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Prepaid mobile broadband<\/td>\n82<\/td>\n2.75%<\/td>\n$16.47<\/td>\n$29.16<\/td>\n500MB data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Prepaid mobile broadband<\/td>\n76<\/td>\n4.82%<\/td>\n$28.90<\/td>\n$51.17<\/td>\n1GB data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

The ITU said that Africa is the region where a prepaid handset based mobile-broadband plan with a 500 MB monthly allowance is the least affordable in the light of household expenditure, noting that the trend feeds into South Africa as well.<\/p>\n

“In South Africa, the African country where prices are most affordable, they still correspond to more than 10% of equivalized household expenditure for 70% of inhabitants,” the ITU noted.<\/p>\n

This means that only the richest 30% of the population could afford to have a handset-based mobile broadband subscription for each member of the household, whereas the remaining 70% of the population could not afford to have an individual subscription.<\/p>\n

Macao (China) was ranked as the cheapest place for ICT access in the world, costing only 0.2% of the country’s GNI per capita, followed by Singapore and Kuwait (0.3% of the GNI pc) and Qatar, Norway, Hong Kong and Switzerland (0.4% of the GNI p.c.).<\/p>\n

The costliest nation was listed as Malawi, where it costs 70.2% of the country’s GNI per capita in the ICT price basket. The country was ranked below Madagascar (69.7%), CAR (66.6%), Niger (59.3%) and Togo (52.5%).<\/p>\n

More on South Africa<\/h3>\n

How rich is South Africa?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Car sale trends in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Terrorism on the rise in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s top-selling cars<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report shows where South Africa fits into the global picture for ICT costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":70463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,767,2984,853],"class_list":["post-74566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-ict","tag-itu","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74566"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74594,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74566\/revisions\/74594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}