Global mobile service revenue rose by 0.58% during the first quarter of 2014 to $264bn, a new report revealed.
Mainly driven by the robust growth of the mobile Internet market, the aggregate service revenue is anticipated to rise by 2.9% to $1.01trillion, ABI Research noted.
According to the report, thriving mobile data subscriptions and enhanced network capacity are anticipated to drive global mobile Internet service revenue to $456.7bn by 2019, contributing to 44.7% of the overall mobile service revenue.
ABI Research research analyst Marina Lu said: "Facing continued price pressure driven by the competitive mobile market, mobile carriers have had to take on higher subscriber retention and acquisition costs to support their market positions.
"This has affected profitability."
Despite rise in the global service revenue, the Western European market declined 5.2% during the 1Q14, with the major European carriers such as Vodafone, Telefnica, T-Mobile, and Orange experiencing gross profit drops, while North American mobile carriers reporting a positive stance for gross profit.
For the first time, Verizon Wireless surpassed China Mobile and grabbed the top position for most profitable mobile carrier during the quarter, trailed by China Mobile and AT&T respectively.
Further, Verizon also attained second position for quarterly gross profit per subscriber at $77.1 during the quarter.
ABI Research core forecasting VP and practice director Jake Saunders said: "Japan and South Korea mobile operators have spared no effort to boost mobile data usage, expecting monthly data traffic per wireless subscriber will reach 12 Gigabytes in 2019.
"Global mobile data traffic will reach 260.8 Exabytes by 2019, nearly a six-fold increase on 2014."
