Channel 7’s Today Tonight this week highlighted the rapid rise of data-hungry smartphones and how they are superseding the humble wallet with an array of applications and functions that allow us to conduct our lives revolving around the handset.

Today Tonight said the humble wallet is going the way of the dinosaur. “The latest mobiles can even scan for the cheapest prices as you go shopping. A new application from Google allows the phone to become a debit card, a credit card and an ID card - everything together in the palm of your hand, the chip in your credit cards now sitting inside a phone cover.”

Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) Chief Executive Officer, Chris Althaus, told Today Tonight said: “Smartphones are becoming your personal epicentre and they are one of the essentials of life these days.

“Increasingly mobile telecommunications are at the centre of people’s lives providing mobility, connectivity and productivity benefits.”

He said consumers are using smartphones for mobile broadband access, emails, videos, social networking, online banking and shopping highlight the convergent era, which was not only revolutionising the way Australians go about their daily lives, but bringing about profound changes and challenges to market structures, business models and policy frameworks.

Australia is a leading market in smartphone penetration in the world with local smartphone ownership predicted to grow to 60-plus per cent in the next 12 months along with an expected doubling in the volume of mobile data traffic. In particular, growth projections in the order of 280% to 2014 reflect the high demand for mobile broadband throughout the economy, according to Access Economics.

Mr Althaus said studies had shown that the estimated use of a typical smartphone would generate around 24 times more mobile data traffic than a traditional mobile phone.

This week Bell Labs said its conservative prediction was for smartphones to consume of 30 times more wireless data in the next four years and 100 in the next 10 years (see story in this edition).

“Smartphones are by far and away the dominate device in terms of sales with statistics suggesting that about 85 per cent of all new handsets are able to access the web, which is the threshold on this,” he said.

“We are one of the world’s highest-adopting countries when it comes to smartphones. Mobile broadband has meant there has been an explosion of apps.”

Watch the story here.