A4AI reports mobile data prices fall in Africa

A recent research by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) revealed a slop in the cost of mobile data from 9% to 7.1% (of average monthly income) across Africa whereas the Internet data is still unaffordable for millions. Most of the progress in Africa was reported in low-income countries where people saw an improvement of 17.7% in affordability, with prices dropping from 15% to 12% of average income. Nevertheless, the cost of 1GB data, which still exceeds 20% of the average monthly income, makes it only affordable for the wealthy few in some countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, and the Central African Republic. On the other hand, A4AI’s report unveiled that Asia is the only region that passed the UN’s ‘1 for 2’ threshold for internet affordability which defines affordability to achieve universal access at a rate of 1GB for no more than 2% average monthly income.