That’s one of the many questions being discussed at the Africa Tech Summit in London today.
The answer, at least in relative terms, appears to be: YES.
In Nigeria, based on the average income it would take someone 28 hours to earn enough to buy 500MB of mobile data.
For people in Germany, it takes just one hour, according to this slide tweeted by one entrepreneur at the conference:
In Germany 1hour's work = cost of 500Mb in Nigeria it's 4 days based on Ave income #ATSLDN @AfricaTechSMT pic.twitter.com/RpYwlhOK9b
— Ian Merrington (@CapeInnovation) September 29, 2016
The Africa Live Page’s own Clare Spencer is there and has been tweeting some interesting facts:
Wow. @Cokpala says at #ATSLDN that South African phone company MTN is the 3rd largest music distributor in the world pic.twitter.com/W6glUG8QVZ
— Clare Spencer (@clarespencer) September 29, 2016
She’s also heard about a financial innovation seemingly named in honour of the outgoing UN secretary-general:
Just found out there's a South African bitcoin startup called Banky Moon.
Is he a fan of crypto currency??
— Clare Spencer (@clarespencer) September 29, 2016
How much does mobile data cost? (500 MB prepaid mobile data)
- South Africa: $9/month (1.5% of average income)
- Kenya: $5.70/month (5.9% of average income)
- Nigeria: $12.20/month (5.4% of average income)
- Liberia: $20/month (59% of average income)
- US: $48.90/month (1.1% of average income)
- UK: $16.45/month (0.47% of average income)
Source: Measuring the Information Society Report, ITU (2015)
