On Tuesday, Mobidia Technology Inc., along withe the folks at Ovum, published new research and the latest update to its white paper series, the latest of which offers insights into 2014 LTE and Wi-Fi usage trends from an extended analysis of the top LTE markets worldwide.
In just six years since its release, LTE has become one of the fastest-growing mobile technologies in history, with a total of half a billion global subscribers expected this year, Mobidia reports.
The firm’s latest analysis of LTE subscribers reveals a “continued positive impact for the hundreds of mobile operators that have invested in LTE technology, and subscribers clearly value these faster speeds.”
In fact, LTE subscribers continue to use more cellular data and buy larger data plans than 3G subscribers. However, many also continue to purchase plans that are much larger than needed to cover their monthly usage. Finally, LTE subscribers continue to rely on Wi-Fi as their primary wireless connection, with over 80 percent of their monthly data consumption occurring on mostly Wi-Fi networks at home and at work.
All told, the analysis highlights the following trends:
- iOS and Android smartphone users surpassed the 10 GB per user per month mark in December 2014 in terms of both Wi-Fi and cellular usage, consuming on average 10.9 GB and 10.3 GB respectively.
- Global Wi-Fi consumption on both operating systems represented 80.4 percent of all consumption this month.
- Android 4G smartphone subscribers averaged 2.4 GB of usage in December 2014—more than double the 1.1 GB of usage that 3G smartphone subscribers averaged that same month.
- 53 percent of 3G smartphone subscribers and 48 percent of 4G smartphone subscribers used only half or less of their data plan in December 2014.
To learn more, check out the full report here.
