There are now more than 276 million wireless users in the U.S. — up by 14 million in the last year — according to the latest industry survey by CTIA-The Wireless Association.
Wireless service revenues were nearly $76 billion for the first six months of 2009. Significantly, wireless data service revenues climbed to more than $19.4 billion for the first half of 2009, representing a 31% increase over the first half of 2008. In addition, wireless data revenues were more than 25% of all wireless service revenues, and represent what consumers spend on non-voice services.
Some other highlights from The CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey:
- More than 740 billion text messages in 1H2009 carried on U.S. networks. — this equates to 4.1 billion messages per day, or nearly double the number from last year, when only 385 billion text messages were reported for the first half of 2008.
- More than 10.3 billion MMS messages were reported for the first half of 2009, up from 4.7 billion in mid-year 2008.
- Wireless customers using more than 1.1 trillion voice minutes in the first half of 2009 — breaking down to 6.4 billion minutes-of-use per day
- There were 245,912 cell sites in operation in the U.S. in June 2009, compared to 220,472 in June 2008, and 210,360 in June 2007.
- The number of direct Service Provider employees in the U.S. in June 2009 was 261,453 compared to 267,855 a year earlier.
http://www.ctia.org