Taiwan tops Asia’s mobile data consumption rankings—report

TAIPEI — Taiwan SIM holders are second in global terms only to the Finns, shooting up to 10.7 gigabytes per month on average in 2017 — twice as much monthly data as South Koreans, more than three times as much as Japanese and nearly six times much as Singaporeans.

How do Taiwanese consumers get through all that data? Fredrik Jungermann, director of Tefficient, told the Nikkei Asian Review that locals are rather “image- and video-centric” as they spend more and more time on social messaging apps, such as LINE, WeChat, and WhatsApp, to name just a few.

According to Jungermann, the average monthly mobile data consumption in Taiwan is the equivalent of streaming roughly 11 hours of movies per month.

There aren’t any solutions on the horizon, however, as Taiwan telecoms have been escalating their offering of affordable tariffs and subsidies to encourage 3G subscribers to migrate to 4G services before the end of this year.

The four operators already offer low-cost smartphones from various brands for free plus some giveaways to entice users to upgrade to 4G services for a minimum monthly fee. The entry-level 4G services start as low as US$6.5 (NT$199) per month.

This extensive consumption is poised to leave operators with a conundrum as they also need to capitalize on the appetite for data they developed among their customers. A situation that could further deteriorate with the arrival of 5G.

Earlier this year, American tech giant Microsoft Corp. already expressed his hopes to explore the development of 5G with Taiwan, particularly for livestreaming, smart cities, and smart manufacturing applications.