Skip to main content

Mobile Internet Revenue Passed $244 Billion in 2012

Global mobile data service revenue -- including mobile internet and messaging revenue -- will rise by 21.4 percent between 2012 and 2014. It will then represent 40.4 percent of the $1 trillion mobile customers will be spending on their mobile phone services.

Thanks to strong commitments to LTE network deployment in Latin America and Africa, not just the developed markets, growth rates in the regions will be substantially faster as the increase in usage outstrips mobile data pricing decline.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, this represents a significant opportunity for regional mobile content and application (app) developers -- which will stimulate a very nascent mobile apps and content market-place.

North America will be the first region to see mobile data service revenue eclipse voice revenue in 2016.

"By offering unlimited voice calls and texts, while making data the only component in a bundled plan with positive marginal costs to consumers, wireless operators as AT&T and Verizon help to prop up voice and messaging, making positive revenue contributions in the short to medium-term," said Ying Kang Tan, research associate at ABI Research.

Rich Communication Services (RCS) and voice and messaging APIs are a key part of their strategy of making carrier-based calls and messaging relevant to their customers.

While global messaging service revenue is in gradual decline, mobile internet service revenue is very much the main driver of revenue growth (2012: $244.2 billion, 21 percent year-on-year).

As smartphones have become the entertainment hub in our lives, music, video and TV streaming’s contribution of mobile internet service revenue has jumped to 26 percent in 2012.

ABI's market data provides a source of financial and operational benchmarks -- not just for the markets as a whole, but also for mobile cellular network providers.

Popular posts from this blog

Enterprise AI Coding Agents Gain Momentum

What started as a convenience tool for developers writing faster software boilerplate code has evolved into something considerably more consequential: an autonomous layer of software engineering capability that is beginning to restructure how organizations design, build, and govern technology at scale. Gartner's latest market study and analysis of this market makes one thing clear. This is no longer a story about productivity enhancement at the margins. It is a story about competitive realignment at the platform level, with trillion-dollar implications for the vendors who supply these tools and the enterprises deciding which ones to trust with their core development infrastructure. AI Coding Agents Market Development The scale of the market alone signals how far this category has matured. Enterprise AI coding agents are now capturing a growing share of enterprise software engineering spend, with the market estimated at roughly $9.8 billion to $11 billion annualized as of April 2026...