With the global economy in the crapper, many consumers are finding that they can no longer buy the things they purchased in previous years. This fact has contributed to a decline in sales in the mobile phone industry in most categories; the smartphone has so far been able to withstand the decline.

Research firm IDC announced today that subscribers to prepaid mobile phone plans helped to keep the wireless market growing in Q1 2009. According to numbers complied by IDC the top ten carriers in the U.S. added just under 3.5 million net retail subscribers for the quarter. Out of that number, a full 75% were prepaid users.

The entire mobile market for the quarter had a bit over 274 million retail wireless subscribers in America. IDC reports that data revenue now accounts for a quarter of total retail service revenue. Verizon Wireless had the most postpaid subscribers added during the quarter at 1 million net additions with AT&T bringing up second place with 875,000 additions.

MetroPCS was the big winner in prepaid carriers with 687,000 net additions for the quarter with TracFone adding 567,000 net additions. Leap Wireless was third with 492,000 net additions for the quarter.

[via IDC]