The U.K.-arm of T-Mobile claims that data traffic is now exceeding voice traffic on its network, with 25 per cent of contract customers signing up for its mobile broadband services in 1Q/08, up from just four per cent for the whole of 2007.
Overall, T-Mobile's non-voice share of ARPU in 1Q/08 was up two percentage points, from 20 per cent to 22 per cent year-on-year, a trend that the company believes will increase as the number of mobile broadband connections quadruple during the course of this year.
While currency fluctuations were blamed for the decline in Orange U.K.'s Q1/08 revenues, the company was able to report that its non-voice revenue grew year-on-year from 21.7 per cent of network ARPU in 2007, to 23.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
The company also released its latest Digital Media Index, a report examining trends in customer consumption of digital media. The latest findings revealed a sharp increase in mobile Internet access alongside traditional fixed line broadband, with key results including:
- Mobile Internet becomes part of day-to-day life--with a 35 per cent increase in page impressions.
- Mobile TV takes off--with an 87 per cent increase in the total hours viewed.
- Video downloads gain momentum--having doubled in the last year.
- Single music track downloads reach new heights--with a record-breaking 289,000 tracks downloaded in December alone.
- Text messaging becomes more popular than ever--with over 1.3 billion messages sent a month--an increase of 21 per cent.
- These figures are in comparison to the second Orange Digital Media Index released in November 2007.
For more on this story:
-read Mobile Entertainment [1], 3G.co.uk [2] and Mobile [3]
Related stories:
iPhone boosts T-Mobile data traffic by 30%. iPhone data story [4]
U.S. mobile data market grows 9.4% in Q3. U.S. mobile data story [5]