Orange
has reported a surge in data use with dongle subscriptions up by 504% in a
year. The figure follows the network’s financial results last month, which
revealed data accounts for nearly 25% of all of its revenues.
Orange
said music and video downloads had reached an all time high in the three months
from December 2008 to February 2009 – increasing by 38%. The popularity of
social networking sites also soared, with a 129% increase in monthly page
impressions and a 48% increase in monthly users.
The figures, contained in Orange’s Digital Media Index, are compared
with the same period six months ago, and measure data use on both handsets and
dongles.
The operator said the boom was due to advances in
handset technology and new price plans, which made mobile internet ‘more
accessible’.
Orange director of products, Paul Jevons, said: ‘The Orange Digital Media Index shows
that the mobile data era has truly arrived.
‘An explosion in the number of mobile applications and new
embedded laptops will boost mobile data demand even further in the coming
months.”
Orange’s
results for the first quarter of 2009 revealed that data now accounts for 24.8%
of all of its revenues – up 3.3% on last year. At Mobile World Congress this
year, the operator said it plans to grow its global share of
non-voice revenues from 6% to 20%.
Orange saw
an 82% increase in 3G customers in the first quarter of 2009, compared with Q1
2008, to a total base of 3.8m
The operator
launched its mobile broadband dongles early last year and in August 2008, it began
to offer dongle packages with its laptops. Orange claimed that dongle usage had
increased by 4,125% in the 12 months since launch.