Mobile Data 2008: $200 Billion and rising

Revenues from mobile data services are set to exceed US$200 billion this year for the first time, according to data sourced from Informa Telecoms & Media. Total mobile data revenues were approximately US$157 billion in 2007.

Research from the first quarter of 2008 reveals that mobile data service revenues exceeded US$49 billion, accounting for a 42.7% y-o-y increase. This figure means that mobile operators now generate approximately one fifth of their revenue from data services; this is significant given that a general slowdown in voice revenues is forcing the pace around the importance of data services for mobile operators.

Informa Telecoms & Media estimates that non-SMS data contributed US$17.48 billion of revenue in Q108, accounting for 35.6% of total data revenues.

The Asia Pacific region comprises 40% of the world's data revenues (over US$20 billion in Q108), representing an above average y-o-y growth rate of 48%. The biggest regional riser, however, is the Middle East, which despite contributing just 2% of the world's data revenues in the first quarter of 2008, has seen a 91.7% y-o-y increase in this figure to US$927 million. Aiding this acceleration is the 321% y-o-y rise in the number of HSPA subscribers in the region, which reached 2.9 million by the end of March 2008.

As per the above analysis, SMS still accounts for around 64% of the data revenues, not very different from the blog I posted last year.