Mobile data usage surges 82% amid IoT growth

Mobile data usage surged 82% in 2018 from a year earlier as Americans expanded their usage of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Consumers used a record 28.58 trillion megabytes of mobile data last year, and increased talking and texting by roughly 10% and 15%, respectively, from 2017, according to an annual survey from the CTIA shared with Mobile Marketer. Americans connected 421.7 million mobile devices to wireless networks last  year, up by 21.5 million from 2017. Most of those devices (284.7 million) were smartphones, while the biggest growth was in smartwatches, IoT devices and  connected cars. Usage of those data-only devices grew more than 10% to 139.4 million.