The average U.S. mobile data user will be consuming 675MB of data per month by the end of this year, said Sharma, founder of Chetan Sharma Consulting. That forecast average will be second only to that of Sweden, which he estimated at 760MB per month. The figures were part of the consulting firm's second-quarter report, released on Thursday.

The U.S. has already surpassed the Philippines to achieve the highest use of SMS (Short Message Service). U.S. consumers sent and received an average of 664 SMS messages per user, per month, in the second quarter. The Philippines, long the world's leader in SMS, now has an average of 560 text messages per month.

In the second quarter, mobile data revenue in the U.S. rose 5 percent from the previous quarter and 22 percent from a year earlier to US$16.2 billion, Sharma said. Meanwhile, average revenue from voice services continued to fall.

At this rate, U.S. mobile operators will be bringing in more revenue from data than from voice by early 2013, Sharma predicted.

The change in the country's status from once being considered a relative mobile laggard has much to do with the fact that Apple and Google, purveyors of the two most popular smartphone platforms, are based in the U.S., Sharma said.