OXFORD, United Kingdom—Peter Erskine, chief executive officer (CEO) of MmO2, stated that mobile data is essential to the growth of the cell-phone industry and claims that from 2005, it will account for more than 90 percent of total mobile revenue growth. To support this claim, Erskine pointed to the 300 corporate customers that have signed up for its mobile e-mail service via Blackberry since the company floated six months ago.
However, this bullish prediction came as the company reported it had gained only 9,000 new subscribers in the United Kingdom during the first quarter, while U.K. average revenue per user (ARPU) fell to
