Half of Australian smartphones now on 4G

Half of all Australian smartphone owners are now on 4G networks, and more than half are on non-contract plans, according to technology analyst firm Telsyte.

Telsyte predicts that the proportion of mobile subscriptions to 4G networks will further increase to 85% by 2020.

Given this growth trend, the company expects more competition around delivering services that can make use of the faster download speeds and larger allowances being provided.

There are an estimated 25 million handheld mobile services in operation in Australia, Telsyte said. The market is becoming more competitive as a result of the growing popularity of BYO mobile plans.

Combined with Telstra’s recent high-profile network outages and the introduction of more competitive 4G plans, this is encouraging mobile customers to shop around for better deals, which will result in a lower number of long-term subscriptions, the analysts predict.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and secondary devices will be the main drivers of any future market growth in a highly mature market. But because M2M and other non-handset services have a lower average revenue per user they will not generate as much profit for mobile operators.

This has the potential to impact the profitability of the big three carriers, with Telstra particularly vulnerable because the wide majority of its subscription growth — 71% of its new services in the second half of 2015 — is coming from M2M connections.

Finally, the research shows that Australia is wrapped up in the global Pokemon Go craze, with around 2 million Australian smartphone users having downloaded the augmented reality game by the end of July.

Image courtesy of Mark Morgan under CC