Data Helps U.K. Carriers Maintain Revenue Amidst Voice Decline

Data revenues clearly have become the antidote to declining mobile voice revenues, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Mobile data will compensate for the declines in the voice business during the next five years.Vodafone achieved growth of 30 percent during the fourth quarter of  2010.

Telefónica O2 achieved a similar result, reporting growth of 32 percent in its non-P2P SMS revenue year-on-year to December 2010. This refers to data excluding revenue from person-to-person SMS messages, in other words, mobile data revenue other than from text messaging.

Still, average revenue per user continues to dip slightly, and the mobile data replacement of voice can only go so far. At some point, mobile operators will have to find other avenues for revenue growth.