New Zealand operator Spark has found that farmers and the rural sector consistently use the most 4G/LTE data across the entire country. When analyzing data traffic over the last month, Spark’s cell towers in both Waiuku and Te Puke showed the highest volume of use. Farmers and rural residents in these two locations are consistently using over 1 TB of data each week. Other rural sites including Pukekura, Te Awamutu, Pukekohe and Te Kawa also rank extremely high in 4G data usage.

Tarifica’s Take

This news from New Zealand is a useful reminder that while the assumption tends to be that users in dense urban areas are the most sophisticated and data-hungry, rural users, particularly in countries such as New Zealand that have a thriving agricultural base, can also be major market drivers. The fact that farmers there stand out as the biggest consumers of mobile data also illustrates the point that mobile internet can be especially desirable in regions where fixed line service may be relatively less available and/or less efficient.