Windows Phone Thoughts: 1.6 Billion in Q4-2004!

"As the wireless market matures and voice services become more of a commodity, the competitive landscape among U.S. wireless carriers is rapidly evolving. In a new study of the U.S. wireless services market, IDC found that U.S. wireless carriers generated $1.6 billion in data service and application revenues in 4Q04 from a base of 178.2 million subscribers and customers."

Overall some very interesting information on the state of the financial world regarding wireless carriers. While messaging accounted for around half of the revenues, data service didn't show to shabby with 5.8% of the overall revenue. One thing that is a bit annoying though:

"In the study, IDC offers recommendations to U.S. wireless carriers as they continue to focus on key strategies that allow them to achieve and sustain growth involving data services and applications, including building a value-oriented data strategy, fine-tune marketing strategies for the youth and young adult markets"

Apparently despite my moaning, the teenagers who want ringtones over access to corporate email, MMS over SMS, and "cool" over "Productive" are looked upon kindly by IDC and other market analysts. Oh U.S. Carriers - why can't you go after the businessman-who-wants-his-data-now market like you go after the kids-who-want-to-have-fun market???