I have been studying the Swiss telecom sector for around 25 years now. Mobile roaming, meaning making calls and getting online while traveling abroad, has been a constant source of discussion. When you roam, you leave your regular SIM card in your phone and use it to connect to foreign mobile networks. The roaming charges are included in your regular phone bill.
Recently, the Federal Office of Communications published its latest roaming statistics. As a telecom expert, I enjoy sifting through these kinds of statistics. The data is collected on a quarterly basis. The most recent data included in the statistics is from the fourth quarter of 2022.
In this blog post, I look at the most interesting information revealed by the statistics.
How many consumers use mobile roaming?
In the summer quarter of 2022 (July through September), 42 percent of Swiss consumers used mobile roaming. the statistic also shows that roaming was less widely used during the winter quarter (January through March) than in other quarters. In the winter quarter of 2022, 25 percent of Swiss consumers used mobile roaming.
I find that number surprisingly high, considering that now all residents even travel outside of Switzerland for their holidays. But the figure also includes residents who cross the border to shop, unless they disable mobile roaming.
How many Swiss consumers have mobile plans that include roaming?
At the end of 2022, at total of around 3.8 million mobile plans with included roaming allowances were subscribed to by Swiss consumers. Another 6.4 million mobile plans without roaming allowances are also active. In other words, 37 percent of mobile plans being used include roaming allowances.
The statistics include all plans with mobile roaming allowances, include those which include just a small, symbolic amount of roaming data.
Considering how heavily mobile service providers advertise mobile plans that include roaming allowances, it is a surprising that they make up just 37 percent of subscriptions in use. Many of the plans that include roaming are very expensive, and do not make financial sense for average holidaymakers. They can be beneficial for consumers who frequently leave the country for personal or work-related travel. Even the special promotional offers in which plans with roaming are offered for around 25 francs per month often do not pay off for regular consumers who only travel abroad on vacations.
How much roaming data is consumed by Swiss consumers?
Across the whole year, customers of Swiss telecom companies transferred nearly 54 million gigabytes of data over foreign mobile networks. The bulk of this roaming data is consumed in EU countries, EFTA countries, and the United Kingdom. Swiss consumers used less than 3 million gigabytes of data, in total, in all other countries combined.
54 million gigabytes is an imposing figure, especially when you consider that only a minority of Swiss consumers use mobile roaming at all. That Swiss roamers consumer the bulk of roaming data in European countries is likely due to two things. Firstly, the roaming allowances included in Swiss mobile plans are most commonly only for Europe. Secondly, data bundles for many European countries are much cheaper than bundles for many other countries.
How widely used are data roaming bundles?
90.3 percent of the roaming data used comes from data roaming allowances that are included in mobile plans. The remaining amount is data from roaming bundles and options. Only a small, shrinking portion of the data consumed is still transferred at standard roaming rates. OFCOM does not provide exact figures for this portion. So it can be assumed that around 9 percent of the total amount of data is consumed via roaming bundles.
9 percent may seem relatively little, but it clearly shows that many Swiss consumers do not use mobile roaming at all unless it is included in their mobile plans, or the included roaming allowances have been used up. Obviously, many consumers forego using data roaming bundles. Instead, they make use of free Wi-Fi connections or local SIM cards.
How popular is call roaming?
I have repeatedly stated my opinion that the practice of making regular phone calls while traveling abroad is slowly becoming obsolete. In fact, many consumers do forego making phone calls while traveling. By phone calls, I mean regular voice calls over mobile networks, and not voice calls made via messaging apps like Whatsapp, as those are not included in the statistics.
But a look at the statistics shows that call roaming is still popular. Customers of Swiss telecom companies spent a total of 487 million minutes on the phone using call roaming in 2022. That is higher than the figure for 2017.
A particularly surprising fact is that nearly a third of these calls were still made at standard mobile roaming rates. According to the statistics, a total of 36 million minutes of roaming calls were made at standard prices. Many Swiss telecom service providers charge inflated standard prices for roaming, so consumers are paying much more than necessary. According to my own calculations, Swiss consumers could have saved a combined total of 30 million Swiss francs in 2022 if they had called at the rates used for cheap roaming options, instead of at standard rates.
For years now, experts have warned against calling at standard rates, which makes the fact that nearly one-third of roamers still call at excessive standard rates very difficult to understand. Does the complexity of roaming rates overwhelm people, resulting in their simply resigning to high phone bills? Or is it simply a matter of consumers not caring less, even if they are overpaying?
Do prepaid mobile users also make use of mobile roaming?
The statistics from OFCOM clearly show that prepaid mobile users hardly use mobile roaming at all. While 16 percent of Swiss mobile users had prepaid mobile at the end 0f 2022, prepaid users consumed only 1.1 percent of the total data roaming volume. Additionally, only 1.1 percent of calls made using mobile roaming were made by prepaid mobile users.
Weitere Informationen:
Find the best roaming solution with the data roaming wizard
Roaming calculator
Compare Swiss mobile plans including roaming
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