Summary
The US mobile data service revenues grew 5% Q/Q and 20% Y/Y to $24.8B in Q4 2013. For the year 2013, US mobile data market reached $90 billion in 2013. In Q4 2013, the mobile data revenues also eclipsed the 50% mark meaning more than 50% of the mobile services revenues is now coming from data services – an important milestone. In 2014, we expect US to become the first country to cross the $100B mark in mobile data services revenues. We have also started to see digital services appear in the revenue maps as more companies rely on mobile to generate their revenues.
The US operators added 12M+ new subscriptions in 2013 with a majority of them coming from non-phone devices. Verizon led with 36% share followed by T-Mobile at 34%.
As expected, iOS bounced back and edged past Android with 49% share of smartphones sold in Q4 2013. For the year, iOS and Android were practically even at 48% each with crumbs left for the rest. Smartphone penetration increased to 66% and roughly 92% of the devices sold now are smartphones.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, articles, and our annual thought-leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in May 2014. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in May 2014.
Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this research are our clients.
