Smartphones, iPhone, and Messaging Driving ARPU Gains for AT&T Mobile Business Customers

(Business News & Technology News, 9 Oct 2008)

Mobile messaging revenues are driven by smartphone penetration, occupation segmentation and pricing. In a new study from ABI Research that analyzes customer demographics and mobile services usage to create profiles of mobile business customer ARPUs for Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, AT&T emerged to have the best combination of the said variables resulting in the highest mobile messaging revenues from the mobile business customer.

"AT&T ARPU figures demonstrate that personal use of the mobile phone across mobile services domains is also greatly benefiting AT&T business customer revenues. This is not only a smartphone phenomenon, it is also an iPhone phenomenon," says Dan Shey, principal analyst.

But the demographic profile differences that explain operators' customer services usage include more than age, income, and vertical/occupation representation. For instance, customer profiles also include an analysis of customer mobility based on time spent at home, in transit, and in different work locations. This data, and that showing customers' adoption of particular device features, help explain not only total ARPUs but also messaging services usage for each carrier.

Customers' demographics as well as their expressed interests in handset device features provide a snapshot of the future opportunities for operators when launching new services and expanding existing ones.

"Wi-Fi and location-based service features are two device capabilities of high interest in our customer analysis. But the differences among operators in customer demographics, services adoption and device interests suggest that operators must pursue different technology strategies if they expect to be successful," says Shey.

Click here for more information on ABI Research