Gut Check: State of the Global Wireless Data Market

Chetan Sharma Consulting have sent us their latest research on the state of the global wireless data market, and it contains some astonishing numbers. Overall, the report is just further proof that wireless broadband is going to have a major impact.

  • India is now the No. 2 wireless market, with 250 million subscriptions, ahead of the U.S. and behind China
  • In 2007, wireless data revenues totaled $120 billion, about 17 percent of total mobile industry revenues of $700 billion
  • For some carriers, data now represents 35 percent of total revenues, though that’s not enough to make up for the decline in voice revenues
  • U.S. is the biggest wireless data market with some $24.5 billion in revenues in 2007, ahead of Japan, which spent $23.2 billion on wireless data, followed by China, which spent $12.5 billion
  • In terms of wireless data revenues, globally carriers are ranked, in descending order from No. 1, as follows: NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, KDDI, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, O2 UK, SK Telecom, Softbank and China Unicom
  • In terms of absolute dollar amount, 3 UK leads the pack, with $29 data ARPU (qualifying limit: 4 million subs). Verizon Wireless last year experienced the biggest jump in data revenues, up more than 68 percent over 2006, followed by AT&T, which rose 63 percent, and O2 UK, which posted a 49 percent gain

And now for some 3G fun facts from the research report:

  • There are 270 million 3G users worldwide, with 66 percent using W-CDMA and the rest using EVDO
  • Japan and South Korea have 3G penetration of between 75 percent and 80 percent
  • Western Europe and the U.S. are at around 25 percent 3G penetration, with Italy leading the pack at 40 percent
  • India and China have still not rolled out their 3G networks as they’re still pondering its issues
  • 3G momentum is coming primarily from messaging applications and enterprise apps
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