Owners of Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s handset use significantly more data than iPhone 5 users gobbled last year – 20% more, says a new report from JDSU. The writer of the study calls it an “unprecedented increase” in uplink and downlink data demands.
The report examined data usage in both developed and developing markets, across more than a million mobile device users. iPhone 5s and fourth-generation iPad owners used the most data, with the Android-based HTC Sensation and the Sony Xperia SP coming up closely behind.
iPhone 5s users data consumption falls in line with a trend seen over the past three years where users of Apple’s flagship device at the time were the most data-hungry smartphone users. The study couldn’t identify the root causes of the consumption.
It was also found that iPhone 5c and iPad mini owners use less data than owners of Apple’s more expensive devices.
Finally, the study noted that the top 1% of cellular users consumed more then half of all downloaded data, with the top 10% of users consuming 90% of all downloaded data. And in what shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, LTE data users consume more data than users of 3G and slower data networks.
