$\"\"$
Table 1: Service baskets used in 2018 mobile\/cellular spend calculations (Source: OECD)<\/p><\/div>\n
The key results of our review of mobile\/cellular spend, based on the rates advertised for prepaid service across the region for voice calls only, as at May 2018, are as follows:<\/p>\n
\n
to make around 30 calls per month, LV users spend approximately USD\u00a011 per month<\/li>\n
to make around 65 calls per month, MV users spend approximately USD\u00a029 per month<\/li>\n
to make around 140 calls per month, HV users spend approximately USD\u00a064 per month.<\/li>\n
the lowest monthly spends were experienced in Jamaica, where the amounts ranged from USD\u00a02.54 to USD\u00a014.19 per month<\/li>\n
the highest monthly spend for all baskets was recorded in Aruba, where amounts ranged from USD\u00a018.83 to USD\u00a0105.28 per month.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This assessment of the affordability of mobile\/cellular service offerings was determined by comparing monthly spends against estimated monthly income, based primarily on the latest estimated per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) available from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2018. For countries that do not appear to have a relationship with the IMF (British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, the countries of the Netherland Antilles, and Turks and Caicos Islands), per capita GDP data for 2016 from the United Nations was used. The resulting ratios, which have been expressed as percentages, indicate the proportion of a person\u2019s income that would be spent on mobile services. The higher those percentages are, the less affordable these services might be to the average consumer.<\/p>\n
How affordable is mobile\/cellular service in 2018?<\/h3>\n
The affordability of mobile\/cellular service continues to vary considerably across the Caribbean region, and as shown in Figure 1 and the two countries examined. Further, the range in monthly spend became more dramatic as one moved from the LV basket to the HV basket of calls.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$
Figure 1: Portion of monthly income spent on mobile\/cellular calls as of May 2018 for select baskets of services (Source: ICT Pulse)<\/p><\/div>\n
With regard to the LV basket of calls, the smallest proportion of a person\u2019s monthly income would most likely be spent in Sint Maarten at 0.26%, whilst the same basket of services would likely consume approximately 2.50% of a person\u2019s monthly income in Belize.<\/p>\n
For a MV and HV basket, Sint Maarten again recorded the lowest proportion of monthly spend, of 0.67% and 1.48% of the average resident\u2019s monthly income, respectively. On the other hand, Belize recorded the highest proportion of monthly spend for both the MV and HV baskets. A MV basket of calls could account for approximately 6.42%, whilst for a HV basket of calls that percentage would jump to approximately 14.02% of a resident\u2019s monthly income.<\/p>\n
Across the group of countries assessed, the average share of a typical monthly income spent on:<\/p>\n
\n
a LV basket of service, is approximately 1.14%<\/li>\n
a MV basket of service, is approximately 2.82%<\/li>\n
a HV basket of service, is approximately 6.15%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Are we spending more for mobile\/cellular service in 2018 than last year?<\/h3>\n
For the most part, the change in mobile\/cellular spend in 2017 was not very significant in most of the countries examined. Per our snapshot on the subject<\/a>, 19 of the 20 countries examined recorded a change in spend of over 15 percentage points.<\/p>\n
With regard to the affordability of the mobile\/cellular calls, and as reflected in Figure 2, an increase in the share of monthly income spent on mobile\/cellular service between September 2017 and May 2018 ranged from 0.01 percentage points in Guyana for a LV basket of calls, to over 1.8 percentage points in Antigua and Barbuda for a HV basket of calls. Similarly, a decrease in the estimated share of monthly income spent on mobile\/cellular calls ranged from 0.02 percentage points in the Cayman Islands for a LV basket, to nearly 3.0 percentage points in Aruba for a HV basket.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/p>\n
However, on average across the Caribbean region, and for each basket, a small net decrease in the estimated portion of monthly income spent on mobile\/cellular services between September 2017 and May 2018 was recorded. This decrease was approximately: 0.04% for a LV basket of calls; 0.10% for a MV basket of calls; and 0.21% for a HV basket of calls.<\/p>\n
Hence, mobile\/cellular calling has become marginally more affordable over past year. This increase in affordability can be attributed primarily to two things: mobile cellular calling rates decreasing over the period under review, or a country\u2019s per capital GDP increasing, thereby suggesting citizens having more income at their disposal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image credit:\u00a0 Tookapic (Pexels)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our annual update of mobile\/cellular affordability across the Caribbean, and to what extent has it changed since 2017. Last week, we published our 2018 Snapshot of the\u00a0likely monthly spend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[284,61,15],"class_list":["post-130679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ict-tech","tag-mobilecellular","tag-snapshot-series","tag-trends","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Canon-Camera-Lens-Tookapic-Pexels.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2iE1G-xZJ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130683,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130679\/revisions\/130683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}