Mobile Data Now 42% of Total Among Leading North American Carriers

The percentage of postpaid service revenue related to data increased to 42 percent as of June 30, 2012, up from 38 percent for the same period in 2011, among 14 leading North American mobile service providers a study by

PwC has found.

Carriers with revenue greater than $5 billion increased data revenues six percent as of June 30, 2012, to 39 percent, compared with a smaller increase in the revenue generated by data services for carriers with revenue less than $5 billion, 45 percent as of June 30, 2012 compared with 44 percent as of June 30, 2011.

Data users on average contributed $23 of total average revenue per user as of June 30, 2012, which is up from the average of $21 at June 30, 2011, or about 40 percent of total monthly recurring revenues.

Bandwidth consumption by North American smart phone users continued to grow in 2012, but at an order of magnitude slower rate, compared to 2011.

In 2011, smart phone users, on average,  consumed about 114 percent more bandwidth, the study found. But the  increase on a per-subscriber basis averaged only 27 percent in June 30, 2012, compared to usage levels in June 30, 2011, the PwC survey found.

Bandwidth consumption is bound to grow, as sales of smart phones grows. The sale of smart phone devices to new postpaid subscribers represented 60 percent of device sales for fiscal 2011, up from 41 percent in fiscal year 2010.

Smartphone users on average consumed 632 MBytes of data per month as of June 30, 2012, compared with 431 MBytes of data per month at the same time in 2011.