WHERE are the world's most expensive mobile phones? Score half a point for Hong Kong or full marks for Japan.
Despite plenty of competition and different kinds of technology, Hong Kong is not a cheap place to use mobile phones.
Measuring the cost of owning a phone for two years produces interesting comparisons.
S G Warburg reckons that using a mobile phone for 200 minutes a month for two years would cost consumers in Hong kong about US$4,000 to $5,000, including the cost of the handset.
Consumers in Japan would end up shelling out perhaps $5,000 or $6,000.
Warburg regional telecommunications analyst Jason Billings includes gross domestic product in his estimates - he takes the cost of ownership over two years and divides by gross domestic product per capita to produce an index of phone affordability.
