Thanks To Jio, India Has The Cheapest Mobile Data In The World

According to a study by Cable.co.uk, a price comparison website, mobile data in India is the cheapest across the world. In particular, users here have to pay only Rs 18.5 ($0.26) for 1GB while the average global price is around Rs 600. And this record is thanks to Jio.

In the study, Cable.co.uk compares the price for 1GB of data among 230 countries around the world, including India with 0.26 US dollars, the UK with 6.66 US dollars, and the US with $12.37.

On a global scale, the average cost for 1GB of data is USD 8.53.

The research also describes the Indian smartphone market as vibrant, highly technology-adopted and strongly competitive for its young population that has high awareness of technology. Therefore, just $0.26 for 1GB of data is surprisingly cheap.

India is the world second largest smartphone market with more than 430 million users, just after China.

In 2016, Ambani launched the 4G phone service Jio, which spun off a price war in this super competitive smartphone market. Jio has since provided 280 million users with cheap data services, domestic voice calls free of charge, and even free smartphones. Meanwhile, other competitors saw slashing of rates. The success of Jio also pushed Ambani to the 13^th position on Forbes’ list of World Billionaires.

Ambani

Back to the story, there were 6,313 mobile plans compared in the period from October 23 to November 28, 2018. The study looked into 57 plans in the Indian market and saw that the price for 1GB ranged from Rs 1.75 ($0.02) to Rs 99.9 ($1.4).

The second, third, and fourth lowest costs for 1GB belong to Kyrgyzstan with $0.27, Kazakstan ($0.49), and Ukraine ($0.51) respectively. Mobile data appears to be the most expensive in Zimbabwe with $75.20 for 1GB.

China’s average cost for 1GB of data is $9.89, while the figure for Bangladesh is $0.99 and Pakistan is $1.85.

Ambani is the top billionaire from India as in Forbes’ list. Others listed include Sunil Mittal – head of Bharti Airtel (244), Gautam Adani – Chairman and founder of the Adani Group (167), and Chairman Kumar Birla of Aditya Birla Group (122).