During a keynote at CTIA Enterprise & Applications, CTIA-The Wireless Association President and CEO, Steve Largent, announced the results of the association's bi-annual wireless report. There were huge increases in wireless data usage, smartphone adoption, SMS and MMS traffic.
The survey found that:
- Wireless subscriber connections rose to 292.8 million, an increase of roughly 16 million since June 2009 and represents a penetration rate of 93%.
- These subscribers used 2.26 trillion minutes (up by 19 billion minutes), 1.8 trillion SMS messages (up by 33%) and 56.3 billion MMS messages (an increase of 187%).
- Even with more use, the average local monthly bill fell by 4.2% to $47.47 over the same period.
- Smartphones and wireless-enabled PDAs also grew substantially over the past year, increasing from 40.7 million in July 2009 to 61.2 million in June 2010.
- The total number of data-capable devices on carriers' networks increased to 264.5 million. Wireless carriers reported handling 161.5 billion megabytes of data in the six months ending in June 2010, up 49.8% from the last half of 2009.
- SMS-capable devices increased to 243.7 million as of June 2010, which is up from 235.3 million in June 2009.
- There were more than 243.5 million Internet-capable devices during this survey period, which was an increase of more than 6.4 million since June 2009.
The industry continued to invest heavily in wireless infrastructure. Starting in July 2009, carriers spent $21.6 billion in capital expenditures in the past year for a cumulative total of $295.2 billion since CTIA began tracking the data in 1985.
"As the survey data constantly proves, the wireless industry is an incredibly vibrant, intensely competitive and remarkably innovative while still providing unparalleled value for consumers. Every day across the country, Americans are benefiting from being able to access the mobile Internet or make a phone call at anytime and anywhere. Whether wireless technology is being used by other industries such as healthcare, education, transportation or energy, these results affirm our industry is revolutionizing and improving the way we live and work," said Steve Largent,Ppresident and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association.
A summary of the report is available online with the full report available for purchase in the CTIA Research eStore. For more details visit: http://www.ctia.org/advocacy/research/index.cfm/AID/10316.