This week OpenSignal released their latest ‘Global State of Mobile Networks Report’ and the results are clear: Consumers in the top 46 countries spend more than 50% of their time on Wi-Fi with their smartphones. The company says it collected 12.3 billion measurements from more than 800,000 users over 84 days.
Among the remarkable results of this study, the top 20 countries on the list of top Wi-Fi users are quite diverse. The Netherlands tops the list with 70% of time spent on Wi-Fi, while my home country of Denmark (where 4G is everywhere and dirt cheap) is up there too. Emerging markets topping the list include Brazil, Argentina as well as the more exotic Trinidad & Tobago. In other words: There appears to be a lot of reasons why people across the world love their Wi-Fi.
For a more in-depth (and more qualified) take on the results, read this analysis by tefficient.
OpenSignal also suggest the following view on the mobile vs. Wi-Fi dynamic:
“On a smartphone at least, there’s nothing to distinguish a 30 Mbps 4G connection from a 50-100 Mbps Wifi connection. Wifi, however, will have a cost advantage for some time. In many developing regions a mobile data plan can represents a significant chunk of average income. As long as the price per mobile gigabyte remains high while free Wifi is readily available, consumers will keep using Wifi to augment their mobile data services.”
/Claus.
