Total U.S. mobile data traffic is expected to exceed 1 Exabyte for the first time by the end of 2010, predicts industry analyst Chetan Sharma in his third-quarter assessment of the U.S. mobile data market.
He forecasts the average U.S. consumption of mobile data to reach about 325 MB per month, up a whopping 112 percent from 2009. In the third quarter, the U.S. mobile data market grew 25 percent to total about $14 billion thanks to continued heavy demand for smartphones, he said.
Sharma believes connected devices will become a major driver to mobile data usage. In less than five years "the connected devices category will generate more revenue for the operators than the entire prepaid segment in the U.S," he said. Today the connected devices segment accounts for about 3 percent of quarterly data revenues, he added.
Other interesting metrics for the third quarter:
- About 47 percent of the devices sold in the U.S. were smartphones;
- Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounted for 85 percent of the increase in data revenues;
- Data now accounts for about 33 percent of the total ARPU for U.S. operators.
For more:
- see this GigaOm post
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US Mobile Data Market Update Q2 2010
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