According to a study, Germany is in the middle of the international table when it comes to mobile phone prices. As the study by the digital association Bitkom published on Wednesday shows, mobile phone customers in Spain and Italy have to pay less on average than in Germany. In the USA, Switzerland and Finland, on the other hand, mobile phone contracts are more expensive. There are also countries whose tariffs cost more or less than in Germany depending on data volume, such as the Netherlands and South Korea.

Tariffs from 80 providers in 12 countries were considered. In an international comparison, the prices are often close together, said Bitkom President Achim Berg. "Germany no longer needs to hide when it comes to mobile communications." The prices are internationally competitive.

The study authors divided the prices into different tariff groups, in XS (1 gigabyte data volume), S (3 gigabytes), M (10 gigabytes) and L (40 gigabytes). The volume specifications are minimum values ​​- for example, M is about tariffs with 10, 15 or more gigabytes of data volume. If a tariff has 40 gigabytes of data volume, it falls into the L category.

In tariff group M, customers in Germany pay 26 euros

For tariff group M including 5G use, the authors calculated an average monthly price of 26 euros per month in Germany for the various providers. This value was most expensive in Switzerland (equivalent to around 72 euros per month), and cheapest in Spain (14 euros). Italy was similarly cheap at 15 euros. At 49 euros, Austria was well above the Germany value.

The members of the Bitkom association also include the mobile network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica (O2). In about a year their competitor wants 1

Verivox: No significant trend towards cheaper tariffs

Representatives of comparison portals evaluated the results of the study critically. The study shows that German providers perform worse in terms of price, the higher the data volume, Verivox said in response to the Bitkom publication. In countries like Italy, such tariffs are much cheaper. "With high volumes, Germany still has some catching up to do in terms of price," said Verivox telecommunications expert Jens-Uwe Theumer. However, he does not see a significant trend towards cheaper tariffs.

Manuel Siekmann from Check24 found it regrettable that only the rates from "selected providers" were included. A comparison of all providers is "decisive for the respective price level of a country". According to the study, the tariffs of nine providers in Germany were included, in addition to the three network operators and 1