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by denzil_correa 3120 days ago
The median personal annual income in India is around 616$ (Source : Gallup 2013). I don't think 7$ is "cheap".
2 comments

Median is a poor metric to use (and wrong [0]) due to the huge disparity between rural income and urban income.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD?location...

The yearly disposable income for urban areas at best is 1486$ [0]. It still doesn't make data prices cheap.

[0] http://www.livemint.com/Politics/AvHvyHVJIhR0Q629wkPS5M/Indi...

So it's cheap for people in the cities, but expensive for the majority of people?
That is personal anual income and not family income I suppose. Remember that India has around 30% of people far too young to use cellphones. A family might have one phone and will happily spend $28 per year for the $30GB data per quarter. Also it is mostly prepaid with hundreds of plans to chose from so people chose based on their needs.

Smartphones are extremely important part of India's way of life as almost everything else is regulated to death. It is a ray of light for most poor people and you will find people who might not have a toilet but will own an android smartphone.

The point being : $7 is not "cheap".