Calling and texting may be cheapest in the U.S., but when it comes to data – North American carriers make more money per user than their European counterparts. According to the September 2007 edition of Informa Telecoms & Media‘s World Cellular Data Metrics (WCDM), subscribers in North America generate monthly data ARPU (average revenue per user) of $8.90, compared to $7 in Europe or $4.20 per month on a global scale.
Apparently, the strong uptake of “all-you-can-eat,” a near three-fold increase in 3G subscriptions from the last year, and rapid growth of SMS usage are the key factors that drove the 43% increase in data ARPU for North American carriers in Q2 2007 compared with the same period last year.
At the end of June 2007, there were more than 38 million subscribers in North America. Total number of SMS sent doubled year-on-year, reaching 93.7 billion in Q2 2007 or 120 messages per subscription per month. Finally, when it comes to money earned, total data revenues in North America amounted to $6.97 billion.