Mobile operators should see mobile data revenues climb to $314 billion this year, a 22.5 per cent increase over 2010, according to the market research firm Gartner.
The firm believes that data revenues will continue to rise, reaching $552 billion by 2015, boosted by consumers' ongoing appetite for smartphones and tablets.
However, Gartner warned that operators could see their revenue growth slow as they work to increase network capacity to handle the load. "This is causing a decoupling between revenue and data traffic, and is creating an increase in network costs for operators as they try to sustain growing data traffic," said Jessica Ekholm, principal research analyst at Gartner.
The solution? "Operators should focus on increasing the level of clarity and the transparency of their mobile data contracts in order to make the majority of customers feel more at ease in using data services. This is particularly important when it comes to data roaming," said Ekholm. "Offering clients various ways of being able to track and monitor their data usage would help carriers receive a larger amount of revenue from more profitable lower-usage, medium-pay users."
Gartner also said it expects the total number of worldwide mobile connections to grow from 5.6 billion this year to 7.4 billion in 2015.
For more:
- see this Gartner press release
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