The United Kingdom and France, alongside Austria, Denmark and Sweden, are consistently cheap countries for mobile communications compared to other countries in Western Europe. Greece and Portugal on the other hand are relatively expensive for mobile consumers, according to the results of Telecompaper’s EU Benchmark report for Q1 2014.
Austria, Denmark, France, Sweden and the UK also emerged as relatively cheap for mobile communications in the previous EU Benchmark report, published at the end of last year. To these can now be added Finland, Norway and Sweden as countries where mobile consumers generally pay less in comparison to other Western European countries. Belgium, Germany and Italy, as well as Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland display a mixed performance, with prices sometimes cheap or expensive, depending on the type of plan.
For instance, SIM-only plans with a large bundle (1,000+ minutes, 2,000+ megabytes) varied greatly in price (monthly TCO) across the different countries. During the period researched, prices ranged from a median EUR 20 per month in Denmark to EUR 92 per month in Greece. In the Netherlands, the median price for this type of plan was EUR 42, the exact median across the 16 countries (TP16).
The report compares mobile communications pricing across 16 countries in Western Europe in the first quarter of 2014. The latest edition adds Finland, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
The analysis is based on available subscription plans from all MNOs in the 16 European countries, as well as MVNOs currently building their own networks and a limited number of MNO-owned sub-brands. All in all, over 3,300 plans from 72 operators have been compared.
The report compares the total cost of ownership (TCO) for consumer communications. The (hidden) cost of a handset is among the most important aspects included, with pricing broken down according to a choice of a cheap, mid-range or expensive phone, or alternatively a SIM-only plan. The TCO also incorporates all monthly subscription or connection costs, promotional discounts and corrections for differences in purchasing power across the 16 countries.
