US Mobile Data Revenues Surge

A new report says the value of the US mobile data market in the first quarter shot up by 80% over last year, with Sprint enjoying the highest percentage of revenues from data, at nearly 10%, followed by T-Mobile at about 7%. Those figures are still well short of the 15% or so averages of European operators and the 20%-30% of some Asian carriers, but like those foreign operators, the figures are driven in the US by messaging -- perhaps giving some explanation to other numbers that might initially appear conflicting. The report singles out T-Mobile in particular, pointing out its customers sent an average of 67 messages per month in the quarter, a pretty staggering number for the US. Part of that is due to cheap prices, but selling messaging-centric devices and supporting popular IM services over SMS doesn't hurt, either.