Growth in mobile broadband subscriptions has far outstripped fixed broadband growth since 2010, with worldwide subscriptions increasing from 825 million in 2010 to 4.6 billion in 2017 (ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database), and now accounting for 82% of all broadband access paths in the world (77% in the OECD area). Mobile broadband take-up is much higher than fixed broadband take-up relative to population size, with around three subscriptions per two inhabitants in Japan and Finland, and an OECD average of one subscription per inhabitant. In all countries, the majority of subscriptions include both calls and data, though data-only subscriptions have over 40% market share in Estonia and Japan.
Increases in mobile broadband penetration can be rapid. Since 2010, China and India have experienced roughly 25-fold growth in mobile broadband subscriptions, while Mexico witnessed a 17-fold increase. In some countries the relatively limited availability and affordability of fixed broadband can be an important contributing factor to strong growth in mobile broadband subscriptions. For example, India saw more than 127 million additional subscriptions in 2017.
Mobile data usage is growing exponentially in some countries, particularly Finland, where almost 16 GB data were used each month per subscription on average in 2017. Use was above 6 GB monthly, and more than double the OECD average of 3 GB in Austria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In contrast, average usage remains below 1 GB monthly in Greece and the Slovak Republic. Between 2015 and 2017, average data usage more than doubled in two-thirds of countries and quintupled in Lithuania. Network capacity will need to continue to expand in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for data.
Prices for mobile broadband connectivity have fallen between 2013 and 2018, as shown by a comparison of average prices for specific OECD mobile broadband baskets representing “low usage” and “high usage”. Prices can also vary widely between countries, with the average for the three most costly countries being around five to seven times that of the three least costly countries in 2018.
These baskets provide a snapshot of the lowest-cost plans with the relevant data and call amounts for each period. Importantly, these statistics track available prices rather than customer uptake. Although a given basket may become available for a lower price, many users might be unable to take-up the offer due to contractual lock-in or may opt for more expensive packages with additional data, calls or ancillary services such as SMS and online content. However, an average for all OECD countries may nonetheless be considered as an indicator of general trends in these two segments of the market.
