Mobile Signups Up, Revenue Down
January 25th, 2006 | by amarfresh |Some interesting 2005 mobile carrier stats from a story at Investors Business Daily.
Cingular signed up 1.8m customers - up 5.9%
Verizon signed up 2m customers - up 20.5%
Cingular ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) - $48.86 - down 2.2%
Verizon ARPU - $49 - down 3%
The article also speaks of Sprint’s increasing number of prepaid subscribers and how it may affect their $64.50 industry leading ARPU.
So how will they please their investors in order to make up for the decreasing ARPU’s?
Wireless firms hope that selling more data services, such as mobile music and text messaging, will help offset falling prices for phone calls.
They’ve already increased the cost of text messaging to help their declining ARPU. Carriers need to remember that they are no longer in their own bubbles, and that content, data, and messaging will get cheaper (if not free) going forward. The web is very alive on cell phones and wireless internet access is growing. Customers will demand access to the slew of mobile services which are going to be available for mobile users (at a fair price). If they choose to over-monetize their customers, I feel the carriers will soon find that loyalty has gone out the window.