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

EuroTeleSites Strengthens Operations One Year into Sitetracker Partnership3.8.2026 15:00:00 CEST | Press release

EuroTeleSites, one of Central and Eastern Europe's leading independent tower companies, today announced the results of its first year in partnership with Sitetracker, the leading global Asset Lifecycle Management platform. One year into the deployment, EuroTeleSites reports meaningful progress in its digital transformation, with measurable improvements in operational efficiency, cross-market transparency, and project coordination across its six-country footprint. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260727009809/en/ EuroTeleSites Strengthens Operations One Year into Sitetracker Partnership Driving Efficiency in a Complex, High-Investment Environment EuroTeleSites invests approximately 25% of its revenue into capital expenditures in 2026, funding the construction and upgrade of tower infrastructure across Central and Eastern European markets. Managing this level of scale and complexity demands robust digital support

Visa to Acquire BioCatch3.8.2026 14:30:00 CEST | Press release

BioCatch’s behavioral and device intelligence expertise expected to help detect scams, account takeovers and digital fraud before they happen Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioCatch, a leading provider of behavioral-first, multi-signal fraud intelligence, from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of BioCatch complements Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk and security solutions and is expected to help clients better protect themselves and their customers from the growing threat of account takeovers, scams, money mules and application fraud. Since its inception, BioCatch has developed innovative AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals—such as keystrokes, touch gestures, and device handling—to detect fraud and distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. BioCatch protects 1.8 billion devices and 76

U.S. Bank Investment Services enhances investor and client onboarding experience for alternative investments3.8.2026 14:16:00 CEST | Press release

U.S. Bank Investment Services today announced it has gone live with a new client lifecycle management (CLM) platform, providing a comprehensive onboarding solution for alternative investment clients and the investors in their funds. The implementation is a key milestone in Investment Services’ multi-phased technology transformation strategy, aimed at modernizing processes, workflows and reporting across the private funds space. U.S. Bank leverages CLM provider Fenergo and its Fen-X platform. Fen-X automates many of the manual processes traditionally associated with underlying investors and direct client relationships and accelerates account setup while maintaining regulatory requirements. The enhanced onboarding experience provides investors and clients with more transparency throughout the process and enables integration with other solutions providers involved in the investor journey, such as screening and tax reporting. The investor experience has been further enhanced with an invest

Thales Launches Imperva for AWS to Help Organizations Protect Applications and APIs3.8.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release

Imperva for AWS delivers enterprise-grade web application, API, and bot protection for AWS environments Using Amazon CloudFront, AWS's fully managed content delivery network, to simplify deployment while strengthening application security Reduces operational complexity with centralized security visibility and policy management across AWS and multi-cloud environments Thales today announced the availability of Imperva for AWS, bringing its industry-leading web application firewall (WAF) to Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) Marketplace as a SaaS offering. Built on key AWS services, Imperva for AWS helps organizations protect web applications and APIs against common cyber threats and malicious bot activity. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260803503864/en/ ©Thales The 2026 Thales Bad Bot Report found that automated traffic now accounts for 53% of all internet requests, with 27% of bot attacks targeting APIs directly.

MEX Exchange, Part of MultiBank Group Strengthens Leadership Team with Key Appointment3.8.2026 13:39:00 CEST | Press release

MEX Exchange, the institutional electronic trading platform of MultiBank Group, today announced the appointment of Vibhanshu Bahuguna as Senior Director, reinforcing the company's commitment to building a world-class leadership team as it expands its global institutional business and technology capabilities. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260803009139/en/ MEX Exchange, the institutional electronic trading platform of MultiBank Group, today announced the appointment of Vibhanshu Bahuguna as Senior Director, reinforcing the company's commitment to building a world-class leadership team as it expands its global institutional business and technology capabilities. With more than 20 years of experience across sales, business development and electronic trading, Bahuguna joins MEX Exchange with extensive expertise in electronic trading solutions spanning EMS, OMS, OTC and ECN technologies across the foreign exchange

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