According to Informa Telecoms and Media's latest World Cellular Data Metrics, higher non-voice services usage has boosted mobile operators' total data revenues by 8.5% to $46.5 billion in the first quarter. The value of the non-voice market last year was estimated at $180 billion, contributing at least 20% to total service revenues.
As evidenced by these figures, operators are now increasingly relying on mobile broadband services to boost revenues, fuel growth and help retain subscribers in a fiercely competitive market. More than being revenue generators, data services such as messaging, entertainment, internet access and mobile banking are retention tools and differentiators for operators.
Mobile broadband is most popular in Asia Pacific, which has more than 90 million subscribers. The Latin America market grew at 385% year-on-year to 10 million subscribers at end-March. Emerging markets are bigger consumers of mobile broadband services since fixed broadband penetration in these regions are usually limited. This has prompted mobile operators to look at the opportunity to use recently deployed 3G networks as a way to connect more people to the internet and, in effect, generate more revenues.
Apart from limited fixed broadband access, also driving the growth in mobile broadband usage is the emergence of capable devices. What was once an area dominated by the corporate segment, the consumer market is now driving the evolution of the mobile data market.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Questex Media Group, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning
