ICT Prices in V4 countries

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published the latest edition of it’s Measuring the Information Society Report, in which the newest ICT Price Basket Data were presented. ICT Price Basket is a composite index calculated by the relative price of fixed line telephone services, mobile phone services and fixed broaband services (the so-called sub-baskets). The value of the ICT Price Basket shows the percentage of the ICT costs in the average monthly GNI per capita. The ICT Price Basket shows the available revenue cap if you are in the telecom industry or your telecom costs, one factor of your company's competitiveness, if you are buying this services.

In 2009 numbers V4 countries are among the top one third in the ICT Price Basket rank of 161 countries. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are very close to each other (places 58, 59 and 55 respectively), while in Poland ICT prices seems somewhat favourable (ranks 41st).

The value of the index has decreased in all V4 countries compared to 2008, mostly because of a significant drop in fixed line costs. In Poland however, mobile costs and internet costs have also decerased a great deal from 2008 to 2009.

All in all, the V4 offers a relatively lucrative market for telecom investors (relatively high penetration and use) with relatively high prices. For other industries, telecom prices may be a concern, although not so significantly as electricity prices.