Nearly 20,000 terabytes of mobile data was downloaded by Australians from April to June 2013, representing ‘explosive growth’ of 43 per cent since this was last measured in December last year.
The number of people using handsets that can access the internet – typically, but not limit to smartphones – grew by 13 per cent during this time. “Download volumes for mobile handsets have really seen explosive growth,” said Lesley Martin from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “and while it's true that the number of mobile handset internet subscribers has also increased, that's been much smaller growth.”
Mobile data consumption still only makes up around 3 per cent of total internet use in the country, which grew 18 per cent from the three months to December 2012 to the three months to June 2013. A total of 657,000 terabytes was downloaded across all devices.
But just how big is a terabyte?
“We should always try and explain these kinds of 'big data' numbers in terms that ordinary people can relate to,” Stuart Newstead, telecoms consultant and former O2 and BT exec, told Mobile Marketing.
“Instead of talking technical terabytes, what the statistics show is that Australians are now consuming the equivalent of nearly 30m hours of video every month on mobile handsets. If the growth trends continue, this will be past 40m hours per month by the end of 2013. That will be roughly two hours per Aussie citizen per month on a mobile handset.”
