Report: U.S. subs have highest data ARPU

Informa Telecoms & Media has released a surprising report that concludes that U.S. mobile subscribers are generating substantially more data revenue than subscribers in Western Europe.

European subscribers have always been notoriously high SMS users and therefore tended to be considered bigger data users. However, the firm found that U.S. subscribers with a data ARPU of $8.90 are generating substantially more data revenue than Western European users who average $7 per month in data ARPU.

The firm attributes the acceleration of U.S. data ARPU to strong uptake of 'all-you-can-eat' data packages, an increase in 3G subscribers and the rapid growth of SMS traffic in North America. Informa says that total data revenues for North America were $6.97 billion in second quarter 2007, a 66 percent increase. Total data revenues in Western Europe rose only 35.6 percent, while data ARPU in the region was up 14 percent to $7 in second quarter.

See this report at VNU.net.

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