The growth of mobile PC data cards in the U.S. slowed to a relative crawl at the end of 2008, according to a report from comScore (NSDQ: SCOR). In Q4 2008 the mobile PC data card market in the U.S. grew just 5 percent, dropping significantly from the 28 percent growth rate recorded for the same period in 2007.

Brian Jurutka, VP at comScore, told MocoNews that one likely hypothesis is that in tough economic times people are forced to make decisions as to whether something is a necessity, and many people decided that a mobile PC data card is a luxury. But data rates per person could rise, as people who buy the card use it more because for them it’s a must-have rather than simply a nice addition.

One way the telcos could respond to slowing growth in the mobile PC card market is to lower prices, or at least introduce greater price differentiation, Jurutka said there is also greater competition, with T-Mobile entering the space and PC vendors such as Dell probably considering it—it’s selling laptops with built-in mobile broadband access in Japan. If the market becomes more crowded and growth slows there’s “a great opportunity potentially for some lower pricing,” said Jurutka. (release)

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