Mobidia Technology, Inc.and Informa, have collaborated to produce an update to their white paper series, “Understanding Today’s Smartphone Users.” The new research offers new insights into LTE usage in leading LTE markets of the U.S., Canada, Germany, Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
The research lasted for 8 months – August 2012 to April 2013 and covered markets that have more than 90 percent of the current LTE subscribers.
According to the report:
The analysis indicates a positive impact for the more than 100 mobile operators that have deployed LTE. LTE subscribers are shown to be using more data and buying larger volume-limited data plans. The data also reveal the reliance of Wi-Fi networks by smartphone subscribers, especially those using heavy data-consuming applications such as video. This could represent both a threat and an opportunity for the mobile operators.
Key highlights the analysis include:
- In all markets, LTE subscribers are buying more large data plans from the mobile operators. In Canada, for example, more than 21 percent of LTE subscribers are on 5-10GB plans where only 14 percent of 3G subscribers are purchasing those plans.
- LTE subscribers are using less Wi-Fi than 3G subscribers. In April 2013, Wi-Fi represented 67 percent of all data usage of LTE subscribers versus 72 percent of the 3G subscribers. Nevertheless, growth of Wi-Fi usage by all subscribers during this time outpaced both 3G and LTE data usage growth.
- Wi-Fi continues to be a critical network for smartphone users. In aggregate across these six markets, Wi-Fi data consumption represented more than 70 percent of total data used on a smartphone and is growing faster than cellular usage.
- Apps that subscribers value while mobile, such as Google Maps, or that subscribers want all the time and everywhere, such as Facebook, were used more by 4G subscribers. However, data-hungry apps, such as music services, actually saw a drop of usage over the cellular networks and an increase on Wi-Fi networks, indicated an increase of the reliance on Wi-Fi and the growing sophistication of users.
“We are excited to make this set of LTE usage data and white paper available to the industry,” said Chris Hill, vice president of marketing at Mobidia. “Our data sets are the most comprehensive global view of LTE usage trends, generated by actual users, available today. While our latest white paper provides a compelling set of insights, it represents only a fraction of the data that is available for planning, benchmarking, and strategic decision making.”
