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Mobile end-user average revenues per user (ARPUs) dropped between 5% and 15% year-over-year for the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, according to ABI Research. China, India, and a number of other Asian markets dropped more than 10%. In Europe, the ARPU contraction ranged from 5% to 8%. In North America, year-over-year ARPUs didn’t nosedive, as they were buoyed by mobile data. South American markets were more mixed, with some deflating inline and others, like Brazil, managing to hold up.

Mobile data, which includes messaging and mobile Internet, represents 38% of Japanese ARPUs. Many European operators depend on mobile data for 25% to 30% of their ARPU. Driven by access fees and data traffic, mobile Internet represents one of the fastest growing revenue segments, increasing between 15% and 25% year-over-year for the fourth quarter of 2008. ABI Research expects absolute mobile Internet revenues to continue growing robustly in spite of the economy. Improvements in work, personal productivity, and organization are driving the attraction of mobile data applications.

“The evolution to LTE (Long-Term Evolution), along with 3.5G technologies, is not just about offering end-users faster download speeds. It is also about capacity,” says ABI Research vice president Jake Saunders. “Our research into mobile network traffic shows that the rampup in traffic is effectively exponential. Global terabits transferred per month are expected to grow 155% between 2008 and 2009, to 81,670 terabits from 31,720.”

End-user voice traffic still grew between 2% and 10% depending on the market, but revenue/minute continues to decline. End users are embracing mobile data applications such as messaging, Web browsing, and game downloads. “There is money to be made from these services,” says Saunders. “But operators need to manage traffic loads carefully. A maxed-out basestation can equate to thousands of dollars in lost revenue.”

ABI Research’s “Mobile Subscriber ARPU, Voice, Messaging and Data Traffic Market Data” report forecasts global, regional, and country-level analysis into end-user level benchmarks quantifying the purchasing and usage habits of mobile cellular customers. It tracks ARPU, usage, and traffic for carriers in more than 27 markets on a quarterly basis. This forecast database can be found in the company’s Mobile Consumer Research Service.