Chetan Sharma looked at state of the wireless industry in Q2 2010 and calculated that overall US subscription penetration has reached 95%. This figure surpasses 100%, if you remove those customers that are five years old and younger from this equation. Overall, the wireless industry is booming; growing 6% in Q2 2010 alone and 22% year over year.
Not surprisingly, smartphones are on the rise with over 31% of wireless subscribers rocking an advanced handset. This shift from feature phone to smartphone is coupled with a concomitant rise in data usage. Each wireless customer in the US now consumes an average of 230MB of data per month, up 50% over the past six months.
Data usage by consumers translates to dollar signs for wireless operators. The top three carriers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint, each ended Q2 2010 with over 30% of revenue coming from data services. T-Mobile trailed slightly behind the big three with 25% of its revenue derived from data.
As a result of this boom in data, the US is now the focal point for mobile broadband consumption and the testbed for effective mobile data management strategies, a fact that is all too clear and often painful for AT&T customers. With HSPA+, LTE, and WiMAX being deployed en masse by US wireless operators, all eyes on are the US to see how this growth in 4G technology is deployed, developed, monetized and regulated.
Whether you are in the US or overseas, it is an exciting time to be a wireless customer and an integral part of this wireless explosion.
[Via Poynter and Chetan Sharma]