Smartphone Data Usage Hits All-Time High
By Rob Scott
June 20, 2011
June 20, 2011
- It should come as no surprise that Nielsen’s monthly analysis of cellphone bills for more than 65,000 lines indicates that smartphone users (which comprise 37 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers) are consuming more data than ever before on a per-user basis (especially those with app-friendly iPhones and Android devices).
- The average smartphone user is accessing 89 percent more data per month than last year’s figures, growing from an average of 230MB per month to 435MB per month in the first quarter of 2011.
- Nielsen reports that “data usage for the top 10 percent of smartphone users (90th percentile) is up 109 percent while the top 1 percent (99th percentile) has grown their usage by an astonishing 155 percent from 1.8GB in Q1 2010 to over 4.6GB in Q1 2011.”
- As data usage dramatically increases, most users are paying approximately the same amount they did a year ago for data, translating to a lower cost per unit of data consumed. According to Nielsen: “The amount the average smartphone user pays per unit of data has dropped by nearly 50 percent in the last year, from 14 cents per megabyte (MB) to a mere 8 cents.”
4 Comments
If more data is being used, are more videos being watched? Is this trend a hint that mobile video is a can’t-miss market for the future?
If more data is being used, are more videos being watched? Is this trend a hint that mobile video is a can’t-miss market for the future?
Since Nielsen expects this “data tsunami” to continue, what are the implications for content distribution?
Since Nielsen expects this “data tsunami” to continue, what are the implications for content distribution?
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