No winner yet in mobile data consumption

Every quarter, AT&T and Verizon Wireless report financial results that are increasingly fed by mobile data, so it’s no surprise that mobile data usage is finally a bragging right in the ongoing war between these wireless giants.

To date, AT&T appeared to be winning that war for one simple reason: AT&T has exclusive rights to the iPhone, and iPhone usage means data usage. However, a new study from Validas promises to delve deeper into the data story, and though the fully study isn’t due out for another month, a new controversy and a new marketing battle may already be erupting as a result of its initial findings.

The Validas finding that has gotten the most attention so far is that average monthly data consumption by Verizon smartphones, at 421 MB, beats average monthly data consumption by the AT&T iPhone, at 338 MB. Furthermore, about 11% of Verizon mobile data users consume between 500 MB and 1 GB per month, while just 5.6% of iPhone users do the same. The disparity has been hailed as a surprising discovery that could be an important win for Verizon as it tussles with AT&T over mobile data bragging rights.

It may not seem like a fair fight — pitting multiple Verizon smartphones against the iPhone, while AT&T still has the advantage in terms of having a higher percentage of mobile data users overall — but this finding and other by Validas should help set off the next phase of competition between Verizon and AT&T.

The findings also come at a time when AT&T has recently moved from unlimited data plans to a tiered usage model, while Verizon for now is sticking with unlimited usages plans — though rumors persist that will change. (Lest you think that AT&T’s new tier played a role in driving down its average data consumption in some way, those new tiers were unveiled in June, the month after the Validas field research was completed.)

Questions remain: Will AT&T’s tiered offerings dramatically re-work its average mobile data consumption numbers, while more Verizon users are free to pursue heavier usage? Will Verizon’s consumption picture change as it moves to tiered plans, and could it lose the right to brag about having more elite mobile data users than AT&T? Will we see new marketing battles that target the niche of heaviest data consumers, rather than the broader group of more casual users?

Data consumption may still be in flux and may still change dramatically with the evolution of tiered usage, so it is way too early to declare one carrier as having the advantage over the other. If tiered plans do begin to re-shape mobile data consumption, it will be interesting to see how carriers respond.
Meanwhile, what I really want to know is what these data users are consuming. What are the most popular applications among the busiest data users?