Business Wire

DING

27.1.2021 12:12:04 CET | Business Wire | Press release

Share
Phones, Payments and the Pandemic: Covid’s Impact on How We Communicate and Spend Money

The release of the Inaugural Ding Global Prepaid Index (GPI) has produced unexpected findings of an untapped market with high growth potential that has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. This bi-annual global study commissioned by Ding , the world’s largest mobile top-up service, examines the views of 7,000 respondents across the US, the UK, France, KSA, UAE, Qatar, Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines, regarding their engagement in the prepaid market and their attitudes towards it. The prepaid market is defined as people who use prepaid mobile billing; prepaid financial products such as prepaid credit cards; prepaid utility bill payment, or prepaid gift cards / vouchers.

Market Intelligence - what the report tells us

This report is telling: 79% of respondents use at least one prepaid service, while 45% use two or more; prepay is seen as a more flexible way to engage the services they need and want rather than bill pay (or postpay) options. Prepaid mobile bills account for the highest usage (61%), followed by prepaid utility bills (31%), prepaid vouchers and gift cards (19%) and prepaid financial products such as a prepaid visa card (17%).

While many assume that the prepaid market primarily serves those in a lower income bracket, the study has revealed that a high number across all income brackets engage in prepaid services. In fact, higher-income earners use prepaid products most, with 84% of respondents in this bracket stating they use prepaid services. This result is relatively high across the board, with 78% of low-income earners using prepaid services as do 79% of medium-income earners.

“The Global Prepaid Index has revealed the enormous market potential for prepaid products,” said Mark Roden, Chief Executive and Founder of Ding. “Our research shows that prepaid products attract all walks of life, with many people engaging by choice rather than out of necessity. In an era where we can use technology to provide better transparency and control over our finances, as well as to use it to quickly access services, it is no surprise that people are willing to have their electricity or mobile phone service cut off for example because, in minutes, they can just top it up again.”

Market Opportunity

“Today we see a business opportunity to cater to the prepaid market more than ever,” said Roden. “The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend not only due to financial uncertainty but also with many unable to see their loved ones in person due to social distancing and restrictions on international travel. Even on our own platform, we have seen close to a 50% annual uptick in prepaid transactions during 2020, with customers prioritising keeping in contact by either topping up their own phones or sending airtime to others.”

*** Ends ***

About the Ding Global Prepaid Index (GPI)

The Ding Global Prepaid Index (GPI) is a major bi-annual survey analysing the prepaid market.

The inaugural GPI shines a light on the people who may see prepaid products and services as their only option to live in the world today. 7,000 respondents were surveyed across Europe, Asia and the Americas regarding their use of prepaid offerings, examining the attitudes, activities and outlook of the forgotten billion in particular during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those surveyed were evenly distributed across gender and aged over 18, 30 percent of the sample also identified as expats.

About Ding

Ding was founded to improve people’s lives by helping those with less gain access to more. As the number one international mobile top-up service in the world, Ding has been keeping people connected since 2006, when it launched this first-of-a-kind service. Today, Ding’s users have successfully sent over 450 million top-ups globally, via the app, online at Ding.com, and in-store at over 600,000+ retail outlets worldwide.

Ding is the world’s leading universal top-up service. Ding delivers a top-up every second, via 550+ operators, across 140+ countries – helping families and friends around the world to stay connected.

Link:

ClickThru

About Business Wire

Business Wire
Business Wire
101 California Street, 20th Floor
CA 94111 San Francisco

http://businesswire.com

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

New Esri Press Book Empowers Users to Unlock the Potential of AI with the Power of Geography4.8.2026 16:35:00 CEST | Press release

Exploring GeoAI: Tools and Workflows Offers Cutting-Edge Geospatial AI Models and Step-By-Step Tutorials Using ArcGIS Esri has released Exploring GeoAI: Tools and Workflows, a practical guide for applying geospatial AI using ArcGIS. Designed for GIS professionals, analysts, and data scientists, the workbook supports real-world spatial analysis through hands-on GeoAI workflows. The book addresses the growing importance of GeoAI by guiding readers through data preparation, model training, evaluation, and deployment. Step-by-step tutorials use real-world datasets to demonstrate deep learning, object detection, lidar classification, transfer learning, and predictive spatial analysis in ArcGIS. Esri has released Exploring GeoAI: Tools and Workflows, a practical guide to applying geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) using ArcGIS. Designed for GIS professionals, analysts, and data scientists, this hands-on workbook provides the knowledge and tools needed to integrate advanced AI workflo

Rehlko Defines What It Takes to Build AI-Ready Power Infrastructure as Data Center Energy Demands Evolve4.8.2026 15:15:00 CEST | Press release

New eBook highlights how increasingly dynamic AI workloads are reshaping critical power requirements and explores strategies for building resilient, scalable energy infrastructure Rehlko, a global industrial energy resilience platform providing custom-engineered, integrated power solutions for mission-critical infrastructure worldwide, today released new insights on the power infrastructure requirements emerging from the rapid growth of large language models and artificial intelligence. In its latest eBook, AI Readiness Starts with Power: Designing for Real-World Load Conditions, Rehlko examines how increasingly dynamic AI workloads are reshaping expectations for data center power systems and highlights key infrastructure considerations for operators seeking to scale AI capacity reliably and efficiently. As the eBook outlines, AI readiness is increasingly defined not by installed capacity, but by how systems perform under highly variable real-world load conditions. The AI Power Challen

HappyRobot Raises $150 Million Series C to Build Enterprise Superintelligence4.8.2026 14:30:00 CEST | Press release

New funding led by Prysm Capital and co-led by Eurazeo will accelerate global growth as HappyRobot expands its engineering, deployment and go-to-market teams HappyRobot, the company putting AI agents to work across complex enterprise operations, today announced it has raised $150 million in Series C funding led by Prysm Capital and co-led by Eurazeo. Existing investors a16z, Base10, Y Combinator are doubling down with participation from strategics like Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), Orange, and T.Capital (Deutsche Telekom), Bankinter, Endeavor Catalyst, Kfund and Wave-X. The round values the company at $1.2 billion post-money, bringing total funding to around $200 million and marking a new stage of growth as enterprises deploy AI agents across mission-critical work. HappyRobot works with more than 150+ enterprise customers, including DHL, Kuehne + Nagel, Naturgy, Repsol, and Uber, and has grown 5x since raising its Series B late last year. After first proving its platform in logis

New 3D Flash Memory Technology from Kioxia and Sandisk Achieves Industry’s Highest Bit Density for QLC NAND4.8.2026 14:30:00 CEST | Press release

10th-generation QLC 3D flash memory represents a major leap forward for AI storage architectures, cloud platforms, and data‑intensive innovations Future of Memory and Storage Conference (FMS) – Kioxia Corporation, a subsidiary of Kioxia Holdings Corporation (TOKYO: 285A) and Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) today unveiled their next-generation Quad-Level-Cell (QLC) 3D flash memory technology, which delivers up to 60% increase in bit density compared to their 8th-generation, surpassing 37 Gb/mm² and setting the industry benchmark1 for bit density, performance and power efficiency. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260804147821/en/ Leveraging the companies’ revolutionary CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) technology2 which fabricates CMOS logic and the memory array on separate wafers before bonding them together with high-precision wafer-to-wafer alignment, the new generation improves read and write bandwidth c

Altasciences Completes Expansion of Research and Development Laboratory in Harleysville, Pennsylvania4.8.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release

Altasciences is excited to share it has expanded the R&D laboratory at its drug product formulation and manufacturing services facility in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, adding approximately 768 square feet of new laboratory space. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260804164599/en/ From left to right: Nasir Egal (General Manager, CDMO Services); Marie-Hélène Raigneau (Chief Executive Officer); Anuji Abraham (Senior Director, Pharmaceutical Development, CDMO Services); Robert Sabelli (Co-Chief Operating Officer); Cathy Konidas (Chief Administrative Officer) The expansion brings together formulation development and analytical testing within a single laboratory. This integrated setup is designed to accelerate decision-making, streamline workflows, and strengthen collaboration across scientific disciplines. “With this expansion, we are strengthening our focus on early-stage integration, bringing our CDMO capabilities t

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye