Mobile data is new thing when it comes to purchasing a phone. Most want to always stay connected whether it be to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, DailyBooth or simply the news and other media sources on their mobile devices. This is clear once you check out the latest mobile network traffic graph for the US.
Smartphone usage has increased significantly over the last few years as the ease of use of such devices has become less intimidating to new users. Now they are simply a new medium to connect with the world outside of your computer. With the rising use of smartphones, comes the rise in mobile data usage.
“By the end of 2010, we expect the average U.S. consumption to be approximately 325 MB/mo, up 112% from 2009, the total US mobile data traffic will exceed 1 Exabyte for the first time by the end of 2010.”
What’s an Exabyte, you might ask? Well one Exabyte is equal to 1000 petabytes or a billion gigabytes- that’s a lot of data. No wonder companies are putting caps on their data plans!
More highlights from the quarter include the following:
- In Q3 2010, 47 percent of the devices sold in the U.S. were smartphones, compared to 24 percent globally.
- U.S. wireless data service revenues grew 7 percent Q/Q to $14B in Q310.
- Verizon and AT&T accounted for 85 percent of the increase in data revenues in Q3 2010.
- Per month data (blended) ARPU – Sprint $18.7 (estimated), Verizon $18.61, AT&T $17.35, T-Mobile – $12 (estimated), average $16.7
- Nearly 21 percent of T-Mobile USA subscribers are on the smartphone.
- Data now accounts for about 33 percent of total ARPU for carriers in the U.S. Sharma predicts that in 2013, one should expect data and voice revenues to be roughly equal for the U.S. carriers.
[Via GigaOm]
