Image: Tiina Jutila / Yle

According to telco competitiveness specialist Tefficient, mobile data use in Finland is in a class all its own, far ahead of South Korea, Sweden, Austria and Iceland which follow in the annual ranking. Mobile users in Finland consume an average 7.2 gigabytes of data a month. By comparison, that figure in second-place South Korea is 3.8 gigabytes.

Tefficient attributes high usage in Finland to widespread offerings of unlimited data plans by operators. Clients of Finland's operator DNA average close to 10 gigabytes of mobile data usage a month, the highest in the world, followed by Elisa customers who average 8.6 gigabytes.

Not only does data usage in Finland outstrip any other country in the world, it is also relatively inexpensive. As an example, Tefficient found that while in Finland, average usage is 13 times higher than in the Netherlands, operators in the Netherlands effectively charge 14 times more for a gigabyte of mobile data than in Finland. Other expensive mobile data countries were found to be Canada, Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic.