VZW growth fueled by data

Much of Verizon Wireless’ growth in the third quarter was driven by mobile data—and it’s not just messaging. Verizon Wireless reported that 55% of its year-over-year growth in data came from other applications like game and music downloads as well as multimedia services from its V Cast consumer service.

While Cingular is still the leading carrier in the U.S. by total subscribers, Verizon Wireless has passed the GSM operator in total revenues, recording $9.9 billion in revenues compared to $9.6 million reported by Cingular in the third quarter. Verizon Wireless is running higher average revenues per subscriber at $51.21 a month, compared to Cingular’s $49.76 a month. But more significantly, Verizon appears to be outpacing all of its competitors in data ARPU. IT recorded 14.1% of its $8.5 billion in service revenues came from data services, giving it a monthly data revenues of $7.16 per head. Cingular reported $6.32 per customer in the third quarter. Sprint reported the highest data ARPU of all at $7.75 a month, but that figure only accounts for its post-paid subscribers. Its growing number of prepaid, wholesale and affiliate subscribers drag down that number significantly and when compared to its overall postpaid ARPU, it accounts for only 12.7% of revenues.

Verizon Wireless is seeing advantages from its first-to-market 3G service, V Cast, which gives customers a slew of video and music content as well as a high-speed data connection over mobile devices. Of the $9.3 million in data growth year-over-year, $5.1 million came from applications other than text messaging, traditionally the key driver of data services for wireless operators. But the business side is also seeing gains. Verizon Wireless said one third of its overall wireless data revenues now come from business applications, driven primarily by push e-mail and broadband access services over the EV-DO network.

Verizon Wireless is also making progress in reclaiming its top-subscriber spot from Cingular. It had 56.7 million subscribers at the end of September, 2 million less than Cingular. Due to a lower churn rate of 1.24%, Verizon Wireless is growing at a slightly faster pace, adding 1.9 million subscribers in third quarter compared to Cingular’s 1.4 million.

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