Monday, March 31, 2008

Did you know? Did you consider? (Part 1)

In 2007 the European average mobile revenue per user (ARPU per month) was €28+/-€6; a drop of ca. 4% compared to 2006 (the EU inflation level in 2007 was ca. 2.3%).

of the €28 ARPU, ca. 16% could be attributed to non-voice usage (i.e,. €4.5).

of the €4.5 Non-Voice ARPU, ca. 65% could be attributed to SMS usage (i.e, €3.0).

Thus, leaving €1.5 for non-voice (mobile) data service (i.e., 5.4% of total ARPU).

The increase that most European countries have seen in their mobile Non-Voice Revenue has by far not been able to compensate for the drop in ARPU across most countries over the last 5 to 6 years.

Adding advanced data (e.g., UMTS and HSPA) capabilities to the mobile networks around Europe has not resulted in getting more money out of the mobile customer (but absolute revenue has grown due to customer intake).

Although most European UMTS/HSPA operators report a huge uptake (in relative terms) of Bytes generated by the customers, this is not reflected in the ARPU development.

Maybe it really does not matter as long as the mobile operators overall financial performance remains excelent (i.e., Revenues, Customers, EBITDA, Cash, ....)?

Is it possible to keep healthy financial indicators with decreasing ARPU, huge data usage growth and investments into brand-new radio access technologies targeting the €1.5 per month per user?

More on this subject yet to come :)