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United States Telecommunications Report Q2 2009Product Type: Market Research ReportPublished by: Business Monitor International Published: June 2009 Product Code: R302-6372 Description The effects of the slowing US economy become ever more apparent with all operators reporting a declinein ARPU in the final quarter of 2008. Nonetheless overall operators saw marginal improvements incomparison to end of 2007 ARPUs as data and mobile content continue to increase in popularity. DataARPUs rose for AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon with the former reporting a boost in Q408. The prevalenceof more sophisticated handsets has helped drive this growth and increased reliance on mobile content willbe one of the defining trends of the US mobile market moving forward. BMI has included a new sectiondevoted to the mobile content market in the US given the growing importance of this area of the market.The range of services on offer depend on the different operators but the overarching trend seems to betowards mobile handsets being able to access data in the same way as a PC. Although the operators themselves do not provide much indication of 3G subscribers the market leadersAT&T and Verizon's data show that growth was strong. T-Mobile launched its first 3G network in May2008 in New York and has rapidly expanded its coverage. BMI has included 3G forecasts for the USmarket for the first time with an estimated 30% of the mobile market believed to be 3G users. Again it isthe presence of popular data-enabled handsets that has helped to drive this area of the market. BMIforecasts that there will be over 190mn 3G subscribers int he US market by the end of 2013 accountingfor around 60% of the total mobile subscribers in the country. Total mobile subscribers by this time willstill not have reached 100% penetration as annual growth rates look set to remain slow. The economic crisis will certainly impact the mobile market with lower ARPUs being one of the mostvisible sings. There is also increasing evidence that prepay services have grown in popularity as thisenables subscribers to have more control over their spending during a period when unemployment is highand causing consumer confidence to drop. BMI beleives this will be a temporary move on the part of USsubscribers as they face difficult times but overall the mobile market looks set to weather the storm. The area of the market likely to be most affected is the fixed-line market with many subscribers expectedto choose mobility over a wireline service. The fixed-line makret has been in decline for some time andthis may yet accelerate as the econonic downturn goes on. Broadband on the other hand has beenidentified as a key area for boosting economic growth with the January stimulus package reservingUS$7.2bn to develop broadband services in underdeveloped areas.At the time of writing no company hadbeen awarded funding. We have left broadband and fixed-line data mostly untouched in this report owing to the added data forthe mobile sector. In our next quarterly update BMI will provide a full update of these two sectorsincluding the impact of the economic downturn and the parties expected to participate in the broadbandstimulus package. Table of Contents
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