Mobile end-user average revenue per user (ARPU) dropped between 5 and 15 percent year-over-year in Q4 2008 compared to Q4 2007, says analyst ABI Research. China, India, and a number of other Asian markets dropped more than 10 percent. In Europe the ARPU contraction was in the range of 5 to 8 percent. In North America, the ARPU was buoyed by mobile data.
According to the company, One of the fastest growing revenue segments for mobile operators is mobile Internet, driven by access fees and data traffic. Internet-related revenues grew between 15 and 25 percent year-over-year for Q4 2008. The company expects absolute mobile Internet revenues to continue growing robustly in spite of the economic downturn in 2009.
End-user voice traffic still grew between 2 and 10 percent depending on the market, but revenue/minute continues to decline. End-users are embracing mobile data applications such as messaging, web browsing and game downloads. “There is money to be made from these services,” says ABI Research vice president Jake Saunders, “but operators need to carefully manage traffic loads. A maxed-out base-station can equate to thousands of dollars in lost revenue.”
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