U.S. mobile data revenues increase to $8.8B in Q3

The U.S. wireless data market generated third quarter services revenues of $8.8 billion despite turmoil across the national economic landscape, according to a new report issued by advisory firm Chetan Sharma Consulting. Mobile data revenues in the U.S. increased 7.3 percent quarter-over-quarter and 37.5 percent year-over-year--during the first nine months of 2008, mobile data has now yielded combined revenues of $24.5 billion, equal to revenue totals for all 12 months of 2007. Messaging volume increased 38 percent during Q3, with messaging revenues growing 6 percent. Messaging volume in the U.S. now averages over 105 billion messages per month, a frequency of one message per subscriber every two hours--by comparison, users in the Philippines average one message every hour.

In all, total ARPU fell 4 cents, with average data ARPU growing by 90 cents or 8 percent, almost negating the 94 cent drop in voice ARPU. Verizon Wireless leads in data ARPU with $13.58 (or 26.03 percent of its revenues, becoming the first U.S. operator to cross the 25 percent threshold)--Sprint follows in second with $13.50 (24.11 percent), trailed by AT&T at $12.29 (24.20 percent) and T-Mobile USA at $9 (18 percent). Verizon Wireless and AT&T now account for 62 percent of total market data services revenues, with 74 percent of Verizon subscribers using some form of data services. Verizon now ranks third among global mobile operators in terms of data revenues, with AT&T coming in fourth--Sprint is number six overall, and T-Mobile USA moved up to number nine.

For more on Chetan Sharma's Q3 data report:
- read this release

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