Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo again recorded the world-s highest data ARPU in Q2 2005, according to the September edition of Informa Telecoms & Media-s World Cellular Data Metrics. Thanks mainly to its successful i-mode portal, NTT DoCoMo-s subscribers spent USD 17.6 per month on data services during the period.

Japan is clearly the leading market in terms of data ARPU. NTT DoCoMo-s domestic rival KDDI took second place in the data ARPU rankings (USD 16.4) with Vodafone Japan in fourth (USD 12.4).

NTT DoCoMo-s i-mode ARPU alone amounted to USD 16.9 in Q2 2005 - this is higher than many operators- voice and data ARPU combined,¦ observed Kester Mann, Senior Research Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

NTT DoCoMo had more than 43.3 million active i-mode users as of June 2005, equivalent to 85% of its total subscription base. NTT DoCoMo-s total data revenues exceeded USD 2.4 billion for the period.

O2, which itself launched i-mode in October 2005, is the leading European operator for data ARPU. It generated data ARPU of USD 13.7 in Ireland and USD 11.8 in the UK in Q2 2005.
The operator-s high data revenues are achieved mainly through to its market leadership in messaging; thanks to competitive pricing, more than 40% of UK SMS originate from an O2 subscriber.

Meanwhile, although Filipino operator Smart continues to generate the highest data as a percentage of revenue, 49% in Q2 2005, its data ARPU was just USD 2.6. @A high data as a percentage of revenue does not always correspond to a high data ARPU", remarked Mann. "Operators are right to focus on increasing data as a percentage of revenue, but not at the expense of overall revenue".

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