Big appetite for mini-data mobile phone plans

BITE-sized mobile data offers are booming in popularity as customers sign up to 1GB deals for as little as just $10 or less per month.

For smartphone addicts this amount of data may seem minuscule but telcos say there is a strong appetite for small-serve mobile offers, particularly for first-time smartphone users and older Australians.

Telco comparison website WhistleOut’s Joseph Hanlon describes it as a “little scrum” of providers offering these costeffective no lock-in contracts and many also come with unlimited calls and texts.

“These deals are popular with people who are beginning to use smartphones, so younger people getting their first phone or those avoiding the smartphone trend up until now,’’ he said.

“With the price they are really attractive to people who are budget sensitive, however, for some people 1GB won’t be enough.

“Even if you don’t use data, $10 a month to make unlimited phone calls to anyone in Australia is a great deal.”

Mr Hanlon said 1GB will get conservative data users about three hours of YouTube videos per month, 12 hours of Facebook browsing or about 6.5 hours of music streaming.

Telco Amaysim has more than 1.1 million customers and rolled out 1GB deals for $10 per month last year.

Chief executive officer Julian Ogrin said about 42 per cent of Australian mobile consumers use less than 1GB of data.

“A lot of people have home broadband so they operate WiFi at home and at work they use office Wi-Fi so a lot of people only use mobile data in between work and home,’’ he said.

“We now have a $10, $20, $30, $40 and $50 plan where customers can change plans every 28 days.”

Mr Ogrin said users can top up their data amounts at any time during the 28-day no lockin contract deals and switch between offers when the fourweek period is up.

Telco Moose Mobile’s chief executive Dean Lwin said older Australians are also signing up to mini-deals, including their $8 plan with 200 minutes of calls and unlimited SMS.

“Customers aged over 50 years of age represented a whopping 65 per cent of $8 plan users,’’ he said.

But he warns consumers need to think carefully about their data consumption before signing up to small phone data deals.

“People can get caught out if they underestimate their data usage so our advice to customers is usually to overestimate their potential data or call usage and work backwards from there,’’ Mr Lwin said.