FOI reference: FOI-2024-2205
You asked
May I ask a follow up to Company-aggregated weight and average prices for contract, sim-only and PAYG.
The average price, while not strictly relevant for calculating the indices, is still useful if one were to want to extricate what share of pay monthly contracts is in some way attributable to the price of the handset rather than the mobile service. (I am imagining subtracting the average sim only price from the average pay monthly price).
Does the ONS have any information they can provide that could help us make a rough assessment on this?
We said
Thank you for your query about the share of mobile phone pay monthly contracts that is attributable to the price of the handset.
We do not hold this sort of information. The pay monthly part of the mobile phone charges item generally excludes the price of the handset, largely capturing the charges for the voice, text and data services. This would make a comparison with the sim only price meaningless for the purpose of estimating the share.
We could suggest two alternatives. The first would be to investigate the contracts available on the networks' websites. These often separate the cost of the handset from the cost of the service. Obviously, a large sample would be needed to produce a viable estimate given the range of both handsets and services on the market.
An alternative would be to approach the Office of Communications (OFCOM). They produce a wide variety of data on the telecommunications market and may be able to help.