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ECONOMY

How to choose the right mobile phone plan in Switzerland

Arriving in Switzerland - or already living here - there are hundreds of mobile phone plans to choose from. Here’s how to get the cheapest deal.

Published: 15 July 2020 17:11 CEST
How to choose the right mobile phone plan in Switzerland
Choosing the right mobile phone contract in Switzerland can be hard. Photo: STEFAN WERMUTH / AFP

A comparison of mobile phone offers by comparison portal Dschungelkompass and Switzerland’s Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz has shown which providers offer the cheapest deals in Switzerland. 

The research shows that finding the right provider does not only depend on the company in question – but also on what kind of phone user you are. 

Infrequent users

Not glued to your phone like a teenager on TikTok? Then prepaid offers are likely to be the best for you. 

The study found that the CHF9.90 monthly deal from Mucho Mobile is the most economical deal in Switzerland, netting you a 60 minutes of call time, 10 SMS messages and 300 megabytes of data. 

READ: Our readers on the best mobile phone plans in Switzerland

Sunrise, Lidl and TalkTalk also have offers which cost between CHF10 and CHF12 a month.

The researchers however said that paying a bit more will bring users plenty in terms of value for money, particularly if taking a flat rate. 

Oliver Zadori, from Dschungelkompass, said “if you are not regularly abroad or make calls abroad, you can do without expensive subscriptions and travel better with a low flat rate, even if additional roaming charges are incurred for a stay abroad.”

Flat rate users

By spending around CHF25 to CHF30 per month, customers can get a flat rate on calls, texts and downloads from several companies – although the larger Swiss telcos seem to be a bit pricer than the smaller ones. 

Yallo and Lebara currently offer the cheapest mobile phone flat rates for CHF25 each per month. Conversely, Salt's flat rate costs CHF 39.95 – CHF40 for Sunrise and CH 55 for Swisscom.

Yallo’s flat rate has a minimum for one month and Lebara for two, meaning you don’t need to sign a long-term contract for 12 or in some cases 24 months. 

Promotional offers the way to go

The following table shows the findings of the researchers. One major recommendation is to look at which promotional offers are available as these are usually cheaper. 

Zadori said consumers should look to find the right promotional offer, although timing was a major factor in finding the best deal. 

“Promotional offers have become more important in recent years. If you subscribe to the right subscription at the right time, you can save a lot of money,” Zadori said. 

Image: Dschungelkompass

This article has been prepared as a guide only based on research completed by Switzerland’s Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz and Dschungelkompass. The Local Switzerland does not receive a commission from any of the above companies. 

 

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

Published: 30 May 2023 15:46 CEST
How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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