According the new ABI Research study, mobile end-user ARPUs dropped between 6% to 9% globally in the third quarter (year on year) of 2009. Some key figures:
- India, which is the world’s second largest market in terms of number of subscribers, saw an even steeper decline of 10% in the same period.
- Europe’s ARPU fell 5-8%, with Austria seeing a contraction of more than 9%.
- Growth in minutes has peaked and is expected to grow at a CAGR of only 1.4% between 2009 and 2015, with most of the growth coming from developing markets in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The research company also noted that ARPU decline is likely to flatten out as mobile data revenue increasingly replaces falling voice revenue. “Mobile data traffic has exploded in the past two years, and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 40% from 2009-2015. Operators can cash in on this demand by enlarging their mobile broadband coverage, thus increasing their user-base. This has started to happen in developed markets such as the UK and US, where mobile Internet service revenues have grown over 12% and 8% YoY respectively,” said analyst Bhavya Khanna.
And you can get additional information from ABI’s full report titled “Mobile Subscriber ARPU, Voice, Messaging, and Data Traffic Forecasts.”