CTIA's Wireless Annual Survey Concludes That 'Data' is Where the Growth Is

It's not just China that is seeing a slowdown in smartphone growth. In the U.S. overall smartphone growth fell to less than 10 percent for the first time since the start of the mobile revolution. That's according to a CTIA report which found that minutes of phone use and text messaging barely inched higher in 2015. One statistic that did show massive year-over-year growth — mobile data use — is something of a given and necessitates huge capital spending by carriers even as monthly bills remain roughly flat. On that front, Americans consumed 9.6 trillion megabytes of data, up from 4.1 trillion megabytes in 2014. CTIA's annual wireless industry survey develops industry-wide information drawn from operational member and non-member wireless service providers. It has been conducted since January 1985, originally as a cellular-only survey instrument, and now including PCS, ESMR, AWS and 700 MHz license holders. No break-out of results specific to spectrum bands or licenses is performed. Previously a semi-annual survey, it is now released annually. The information solicited from the service providers includes: direct employment, number of cell sites, total service revenues, capital investment and other metrics. The CTIA survey also develops information on the number of reported wireless subscriber units or "connections" for the responding systems, and an estimated total wireless connections figure (taking into account non-responding systems). Can the increase in data usage offset the slowdown in new smartphone shipments in 2017? Share your predictions with the Smartphone and Tablet Zone: http://smartphoneandtabletzone.blogspot.com/