Mobile phone usage keeps growing

U.S. mobile phone users are talking, texting and surfing the Web more than ever, according to new data from a wireless industry trade group.

CTIA’s latest semiannual industry survey by CTIA -- the Wireless Assn. showed that in the last half of 2009, consumers used more than 1.1 trillion minutes, up 38 billion from the same period in 2008.

Consumers sent almost 5 billion text messages per day in the last half of 2009.

The group did not offer a comparable figure for text messaging from 2008, but it did say that the number of multimedia messages -- those that contain a picture or video -- more than doubled year over year.

Wireless data usage continues to rise. The association counted more than 257 million data-capable devices in circulation at the end of 2009, compared with 228 million a year earlier. Carriers saw revenues from data services jump 25.7% year over year, to more than $22 billion.

Total wireless service revenues increased slightly, to $77 billion from $75 billion. Industry analysts have said that carriers may soon introduce new pricing plans, including tiered pricing for data users, because revenues are not keeping pace with data consumption.

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