Data now more than 30% of Verizon Wireless service revenues

Verizon Communications reported third quarter net income of $2.89 billion, down from $3.20 billion in the year-ago quarter [1]as consumers and enterprises continued to slash traditional wireline services--the company's Verizon Wireless unit nevertheless posted strong growth, with its subscriber total increasing 1.2 million to 89 million, up 25.7 percent year-over-year. According to Verizon, wireless revenues grew to $15.8 billion, up 24.4 percent over its Q3 2008 totals; service revenues were $13.5 billion, up 23.7 percent year over year, and mobile data revenue grew to $4.1 billion, up 48.1 percent compared to last year. Data revenues now represent 30.5 percent of all Verizon Wireless service revenues, up from 25.1 percent in the third quarter of 2008. While total service ARPU decreased 2.2 percent year over year in Q3, total data ARPU increased to $15.59, up 17.2 percent over the third quarter of 2008.

Verizon Wireless customers sent or received more than 153 billion text messages during the third quarter, up about 7 billion quarter-over-quarter--subscribers also sent more than 2.8 billion picture/video messages, up from 2.5 billion in Q2 2009. However, Verizon Wireless users completed 38 million music and video downloads in Q3, off the 40 million downloads posted [2] a quarter ago.

For more on Verizon's Q3 results:
- read this release [3]
- see these Verizon metrics [1]
- and for complete coverage of the third quarter earnings season, click here [4]

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