We all know carriers have a number of reasons for pushing customers towards a certain product. The most common is because it means more money in the pocket of the carrier. Which in turn provides more money for the employees. So you see, it all makes sense. This is one reason in particular that phones with bigger displays and phablets are becoming more normal and mainstream.
As NPD Group reports, data consumption of smartphone users is 44% greater from people who use a device with a bigger display like the Galaxy S4, Nexus 5, or Galaxy Note III, than that of a customer who has a device with a smaller display. More data consumption ultimately means more money you have to pay your carrier, and that should make all the carriers open their eyes wide with excitement. We are seeing a trend of phones with larger screens, but the majority of smartphones at most carriers still have smaller displays which means people are probably not using their data as much. Logically, all forms of content that require data is without a doubt more enjoyable on a bigger display, so why aren’t there more phones out there with screens in a bigger size?
Of the 44% larger data consumption, it is reported that those users on average chew through about 7.2GB of data a month, while users that own smaller phones go through about 5GB of data a month. Although 5GB is still a lot to some, there’s a clear cut difference between 5 and over 7GB. It’s not all internet browsing and media content that consumers are using either. According to the graph below, the biggest chunk of that data is coming from usage of social media at somewhere between 85 and 90%, with Navigation following closely behind. Video content is just above 80% while music is the lowest on the graph at 60%. Among all the data consumption, Facebook, Google Maps, and Pandora are some of the most used apps.
As we journey into 2014 and technology continues to advance, data usage is also advancing as it becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives. Because of this we will definitely start to see more and more phones with larger displays. Eventually they will hold the larger portion of the market, although right now they represent the smaller number of people who own smartphones.