Report finds that phones were used more for data access than phone calls last year

The landscape of the mobile industry has changed immensely in the course of the last 3 years. Nowadays we see smartphones outpacing feature phones in terms of production and sales – which also brings along some new endeavors such as the rise of data consumption among phone users. Telecom consultant Chetan Sharma released a report in which the financial statements of all the wireless phone carriers in the world were compiled and found something that has never happened before in the industry. Apparently mobile phones are being used more to access data rather than making phone calls last year – which is the first time it ever happened on a global scale. The numbers are staggering with global data traffic exceeded an Exabyte of data last year with markets like North America and Western Europe expected to tally in at an Exabyte a piece this year. With many people relying more on data services, one would think that the wireless carriers are making some bank money in the process – but in reality, data revenues were still unable to offset the huge declines in voice revenues. All in all global data revenues came in at around $220 billion, but overall revenues remained steady for the most part at around $1.1 trillion. We've begun to see a shift in how some wireless carriers are making it a requirement to have data features attached to some non-smartphone devices – which of course will spur data usage even more.

via mocoNews