Hungarians are using increasingly large amounts of mobile data while abroad, with average daily roaming data consumption nearly doubling over three years, according to the latest Mobile Market Report by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH).
The increase is not primarily due to Hungarians travelling more frequently, the authority said in a statement on Tuesday. Instead, it reflects the broader trend of people using more mobile data in general, whether they are in Hungary or abroad.
In 2022, Hungarians used an average of 0.6 gigabytes of mobile data for each day spent abroad. By 2025, the figure had risen to 1.1 GB, almost twice as much.
Voice usage has followed the opposite trend. Hungarians made an average of 15 minutes of roaming calls per day abroad in 2022, compared with 12 minutes in 2025.
Roaming mobile data traffic increased significantly throughout the 2022–2025 period. It rose by 51 per cent in 2023, followed by a 32 per cent increase in 2024 and a further 16 per cent rise in 2025. Although the pace of growth slowed, data traffic reached a new annual high each year.
Traditional voice traffic showed a markedly different pattern. Roaming calls increased by less than 4 per cent in 2023, remained essentially unchanged in 2024 and fell by 3 per cent in 2025.
The figures show an increasingly clear divide in mobile usage abroad, with mobile internet consumption continuing to grow while voice traffic has stagnated and began to decline.
Roaming usage also remains strongly seasonal. Both data and voice traffic peak between July and September, while the lowest levels are recorded during the first three months of the year.
The seasonal difference is particularly pronounced for mobile data. On average over the four years examined, third-quarter data traffic was 64 per cent higher than in the first quarter. For voice calls, the corresponding difference was just 14 per cent.
The NMHH publishes its Mobile Market Report twice a year, examining both domestic mobile subscription use and usage abroad, including the number and traffic of roaming connections.
The latest analysis covers data from 2022 to 2025, as foreign mobile usage in earlier years was significantly affected by travel restrictions introduced during the coronavirus pandemic.
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