Worldwide service revenue  for mobile operators rang in at $240.5 bn in Q4 2012, up 2.8 per cent year-over-year (YoY), per data from ABI Research.

The most robust growth rates came in from the center East, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, while Western Europe and Africa showed contraction in service revenue. Eastern Europe and North America barely barely kept their revenue growth positive.

According to the report, subscriber growth for those inside the top 10 still represents a considerable income, but other sources, similar to M2M services and multi-device tariffs, will eventually must be tapped so that you can maintain future growth.

“As the underlying lift from accumulating subscribers has matured, carriers are beginning to cast around for added revenue streams that don’t just boost revenues, but in addition profitability,” said Jake Saunders, VP for core forecasting at ABI Research. “There continues to be tremendous income to be generated from mobile services; the head 10 Mobile carriers alone generated US$ 202 billion in gross profit, up 4.2 per cent year-on-year in 2012.”