Industry Research |
Industry consultant group Chetan Sharma issues annual reviews of U.S. wireless data markets and global wireless data markets.
The FCC reports annually on overall competitive market conditions in U.S. wireless markets. The two-page press release for the Eleventh Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions with Respect to Commercial Mobile Services, released September 29, 2006, summarizes major findings.
During 2005, the number of U.S. mobile telephone subscribers in the United States rose from 184.7 million to 213 million, increasing the nationwide penetration rate to approximately 71 percent. The amount of time mobile subscribers spend talking and texting on their mobile phones has also increased and the volume of text message traffic grew to 48.7 billion messages in the second half of 2005, nearly double the 24.7 billion messages in the same period of 2004. Revenue per minute, which can be used to measure the per-minute price of mobile telephone service, fell 22 percent during 2005 from $0.09 in 2004 to $0.07 in 2005.
The complete FCC report is 127 pages. Tables starting on page 96 describe wireless markets in the U.S. and selected other countries.
Source for data in tables: Tables 11 and 12, The FCC Report on Competitive Market Conditions, pp. 102 and 107. The international data cites Interactive Global Wireless Matrix 4Q05, Merrill Lynch, Telecom Services Research. In describing the Non-U.S. data, Table 12 notes: In markets where "calling party pays" is used, figures for minutes of use (MOUs) may be somewhat understated, and the revenue figures used to calculate ARPU somewhat overstated, relative to markets where "mobile party pays" is used. Consequently, figures for revenue per minute (ARPU divided by MOUs) probably overstate the difference between revenue per minute in the United States (along with other mobile party pays markets) and calling party pays markets.