Smartphones, iPads & the state of the mobile Internet

The first quarter of 2011 turned out to be a big one for smartphone makers, especially Apple and Android-based device makers such as Samsung.

In the US alone, slightly more than half of the phones sold were smartphones, which now account for 80 percent of the revenues from phones sold in the US. Smartphones – along with the booming demand for personal hotspots, tablets and iPads — have caused mobile data usage to explode, increasing by 130 percent during the first quarter of 2011 versus the first quarter of 2010, according to Akamai and Ericsson. In comparison, voice is becoming less important on wireless networks.