Roaming reveals where Norwegians travel to

Summer is, believe it or not, well underway. In connection with the holidays, many Norwegians are setting the course for southerly latitudes. Usually, with the mobile phone as a travel companion. That can, in turn, be used to reveal where they like to spend their vacation.

Norwegian telecommunications giant, Telenor, compiles statistics on Norwegians’ holiday habits, based on roaming traffic abroad. The results are published in a recent Press statement.

Spain tops

Among Telenor’s customers, Spain is, perhaps not entirely unexpected, the favourite. 22.7 per cent of Norwegian roaming traffic is registered there. Hot on their heels follows Sweden, which accounts for 22.3 per cent.

Third place goes to the United Kingdom. The UK is quite far behind, with 9.4 per cent of the foreign data traffic for Norwegian mobile users. The other Scandinavian neighbour, Denmark, occupies fourth place with a share of 7.9 per cent. We find Germany in fifth, with just shy of one-twentieth.

All of the top ten are EU countries. Mobile usage in countries outside the EU is also growing sharply, but with no specific figures available, according to Telenor.

Free roaming

The top destinations for Norwegians. Image: Telenor

The fact that mobile phone use among Norwegians is the most widespread phenomena in Europe, is not surprising. This, considering that Norway has free roaming, just as among the EU countries (since 2017). ‘Free roaming’ means that mobile companies cannot charge extra when calling, or using mobile data, inside the EU and EEA. the companies now have to shoulder the extra costs themselves.

Telenor announced, as early as in 2017, that they experienced a formidable growth in the use of mobile data abroad in recent years. Growth was a staggering nine-fold in just one year.

Telenor states in the press release that they have an agreement on 4G roaming with mobile operators in a number of countries. So far, the company has agreements with operators in a total of 131 countries around the world.

(source: digi.no)

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