Mobile Internet price in India is the cheapest among top telecom markets as it crashed 29 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Leading mobile service providers in India – that contributed to the mobile Internet growth – include Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, MTNL and BSNL.
In 2013, Reliance Industries’ 4G venture, Videocon Industries, Tikona and Uninor will add fuel to the decline in mobile Internet market in the country.
Mobile Internet price has plummeted 29.4 percent year-on-year in Q4 2012, ABI Research.
In Q42011, India ranked fourth.
ABI Research’s Mobile Internet Pricing Q4-2012 survey found that UAE currently has the most expensive mobile Internet pricing plan at $67.8 for 5GB.
In this report, ABI Research does not share forecast of mobile Internet pricing in coming years.
There is considerable fluidity in mobile data tariffs—one year ago, Singapore had the cheapest Mobile Internet Tariffs, but it has since reduced its data caps while keeping the tariff pricing the same.
Guardian UK reported that mobile carrier Three would offer 4G connections at the same price as its existing 3G service when it gets them in autumn.
Three’s rival Everything Everywhere launched 4G services in October at premium prices compared to its existing 3G services. Its 4G contracts cost from £21 per month for a 12-month Sim-only plan with 500MB of data, where the customer provides the phone, compared to £8 for the same contract on 3G. Prices for its Sim-only 12-month 4G service range up to £61 per month. Three offers a 12-month Sim-only 3G plan with 500MB data starting at £6.90 per month, with unlimited data on offer for £25 per month.
ABI Research says global mobile carriers have seen voice ARPUs decline year-over-year for the last 5 years. Previously, messaging had been seen as the silver bullet to stabilize falling revenues but this segment has been commoditized much in the same way as voice. Mobile Internet data is one opportunity for the carriers to stabilize their revenue outlook through the offering of innovative data centric services.
Comparing mobile Internet pricing between Q2-2012 and Q4-2012, 73 percent of countries have reduced the effective cost of their 4G tariffs to a significant degree. The effective cost, i.e. the Dollar per Gigabyte basis has dropped by 30 percent.
In US, most of the carriers took the route of keeping fees the same but have introduced larger data quotas. In Australia, Sweden, Japan, and Saudi Arabia the operators lowered the monthly fee but have kept data quotas unchanged.
In Norway, Telenor has introduced 4G tariffs that are cheaper than 3G. 4G is more spectrally efficient and can handle a lot of data but it’s important carriers take advantage of 4G to boost service revenues.
Verizon’s Share Everything Plans have helped contribute to a net increase of 2.2 million subscribers in Q4-2012 and boost in part service revenues by 8.52 percent to US$16,393 million.
