According to the report, dongle data usage increased by 4,125% in twelve months, while dongle subscriptions surged by over 504%. Mobile handset data usage increased by 108% in the same period.
Advances in handset technology coupled with new price plans are making the mobile internet more accessible to many, said Orange. In addition to this, customers are engaging with the content they want quicker and easier than before. These developments have meant Orange witnessed a record high in mobile media usage - despite the current economic climate.
Paul Jevons, director of products, portals and services at Orange, said: “The Orange Digital Media Index shows that the ‘mobile data era’ has truly arrived. Customers are repeatedly enjoying the intuitive and seamless mobile internet experience to access a greater quantity and quality of content that is designed specifically for the mobile portal, whether that’s music, videos or games, helping to drive consumer traffic. An explosion in the number of mobile applications and new embedded laptops will boost mobile data demand even further in the coming months.”
Orange has also seen a huge upsurge across all our entertainment services throughout the festive period. Music downloads surged in the last year with a 38% increase, according to the survey, while video downloads also rose by the same figure. There was also an 8% increase in the number of games downloaded.
The number of customers accessing social networking sites via their mobile phone has also substantially increased, with unique users rising by almost 50% since the last report.
Jevons added: “We’ve seen an enormous increase in data usage across all our entertainment and communication services, including internet, email, multimedia messaging, music downloads, photo uploads, and gaming. It is clear that innovative, exciting and accessible content for the mobile platform is increasing the popularity of mobile services which are embedded on handsets or downloaded through applications stores.”