Holiday record for cellphone data use

New Zealanders spent more time with their smartphones this holiday season than ever before.

Vodafone users consumed a record amount of data on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Data usage on Vodafone’s network was up 73 per cent over the holiday compared with last year, the company said.

The amount of cellphone activity across the country was the equivalent of streaming 182,666 hours of video content in two days.

The total usage was measured in terabytes consumed. One terabyte is equivalent to 1 million megabytes.

The peak hour on both days was between 9pm and 10pm.

Over Christmas and Boxing Day, Kiwis consumed 411 terabytes of data, compared with 238 terabytes last year.

Vodafone technology director Tony Baird said the level of use showed why the investment in holiday hotspots in the lead-up to Christmas was so important.

‘‘Some of these areas may go to triple the usual data consumption in a single day as people flock to the beach or favourite picnic spot when there’s great weather.’’

The amount of texts sent from Vodafone phone numbers also trumped last year’s total.

There were 1.27 million SMS messages sent per hour at 9am on Christmas morning, compared with 1.18 million at last year’s Christmas peak, Baird said.

Overall a total of 16.8 million texts were sent on Christmas Day on the Vodafone network, compared with 16 million last year, a 5 per cent increase.

The increase in screen time isn’t just on smartphones, but is part of a wider increase in internet use. According to internet provider Chorus, average household demand for broadband has quadrupled from 44 gigabytes a month in December 2014 to 173 gigabytes in November 2017.