Mobile Voice and Data Share the Throne

Implications: While mobile voice can be considered “King” as it represents the majority of mobile traffic and revenues, the mobile industry’s growth engine is data.  Rather than worrying about what is King (or Queen), the industry needs to concern itself with solutions that optimize the overall mobile experience - marrying voice and data.

Analysis: Certainly by most metrics - minutes of use, MBs of traffic, percent of service revenue, mobile voice far outpaces mobile data.  In fact, at most every age group, the primary reason for owning a mobile phone is still mobile voice.  Mobile voice, however, is now a commodity service, and voice bucket plans and broad coverage have initiated a trend toward “landline substitution” where some users no longer maintain a landline, and instead opt for cellular-only telephony for personal use.  Mobile voice usage is likely to continue to increase and price per minute will likely decrease, roughly offsetting each other and leaving mobile data as the growth engine for mobile operators.

From a user’s perspective, now that the consumer Internet is more than a decade old and people dedicate a larger portion of their communications and entertainment time and money toward the Internet, it only stands to reason that mobile (data) is the next frontier.  In mature mobile markets over the past five years mobile data has increased from a single digit percent of service revenue to roughly 20% and shows no sign of slowing.

With the right devices (hardware and software), services and price plans, many PC-based applications will find even greater adoption in the mobile environment (e.g., email, IM, Web browsing, search, VoIP, blogging, RSS, short-form video).  However, because of the unique features of the mobile phone (small screen, limited memory and processing power, bandwidth constraints), not all applications will transition well to mobile.  There are also mobile-specific applications (like SMS, GPS and other location-based services) that will continue to evolve independently of the PC.

Delivering the crown of what is King is less relevant than understanding that mobile voice and data are here to stay.  The key for the mobile industry juggernaut to continue its torrid growth is to deliver solutions (via devices, services, applications, pricing, etc) that optimally combine voice and data applications, integrating them where appropriate.  The goal should be to enhance users’ mobile communications experience, enabling them to spend more time on and derive more value from their mobile devices.