Average U.S. smartphone data usage up 89 percent in Q1: research

Average U.S. smartphone data usage up 89 percent in Q1: research

SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 (Xinhua) -- A new research released onFriday shows that smartphone users in the United States areconsuming more data than ever, growing by 89 percent in the firstquarter on a year-over-year basis.

According to data from marketing company Nielsen, the amount ofdata the average smartphone user consumes per month is 435 Megabytes(MB) in the first quarter of 2011, compared with 230 MB in the sameperiod last year.

As for the distribution of data consumption, data usage for thetop 10 percent of smartphone users is up 109 percent while the top 1percent has grown their usage by 155 percent from 1.8 Gigabytes (GB)in the first quarter of 2010 to over 4.6 GB this year.

The research said consumers with iPhones and Android smartphonesconsume the most data, which is driven by app-friendly operatingsystems like Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Windows Phone 7 usersdoubled their usage over the fourth quarter of 2010 and the firstquarter of 2011, perhaps due to growth in the number of applicationsavailable.

Meanwhile, the cost per MB for smartphones has dropped by 46percent over the last year, from 14 cents per MB to 8 cents, saidthe research.

According to Internet marketing research company comScore, in thefirst quarter of 2011, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older usedmobile devices, 74,6 million of whom are smartphone users.