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Telecoms.com: Mobile data to hit $200bn this year, says Informa

Revenues from mobile data services are set to exceed US$200 billion in 2008 for the first time, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's latest World Cellular Data Metrics edition. Total mobile data revenues were approximately US$157 billion in 2007.

Research from the first quarter of 2008 reveals that mobile data service revenues exceeded US$49 billion, accounting for a 42.7 per cent year on year increase. This suggests that mobile operators now generate approximately one fifth of their revenue from data services, which is crucial given a general slowdown in voice revenues. Informa Telecoms & Media estimates that non-SMS data contributed US$17.48 billion of revenue in Q108, accounting for 35.6 per cent of total data revenues. 

"Growth drivers for the increase in data revenues include the acceleration in deployment of advanced technologies, an increasingly competitive market, and of course, growing consumer demand for mobile data services driven by popular data-optimised devices such as Apple's iPhone", said principal analyst, Nick Jotischky. 

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