Despite mobile phone providers’ endeavours to recruit 3G customers, third generation technology remains a low priority for mobile users across the globe, with cost the overriding factor, according to new research from TNS.
The research identified little increase in 3G technology usage amongst consumers, who see the offer of mobile TV and surfing the net as costly and unnecessary services.
At a global level, almost a quarter of people cite cost as the main obstacle to them using 3G (23%); a further 22% say cost puts them off using Wi-Fi technology.
A fifth of people (21%) are not downloading songs to their mobile primarily because of the expense, and 23% choose not to surf the internet on their phone because it costs too much to do so.
TNS says that fewer people today aspire to have Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities than they did a year ago, with 7% of those surveyed in 2005 listing 3G as a priority feature to have on future mobile phones, compared with just 4% in 2006.
Although more people now have 3G phones than ever before (20% of mobile users worldwide) less than half of these (9%) are using their 3G capability.
Of the 26% of people who have Wi-Fi access through their phones (including Smartphones and PDA phones), only 11% are using it and mobile TV is no more popular, with only 9% of the 21% of people with mobile TV-capable phones using this service.
The TNS study found that elements such as speed of the network, battery life, screen size, image quality and memory can be obstacles to take up of many services, but their impact pales in comparison to that of cost.
Hanis Harun, global director, TNS Technology, said; “Given that cost is such a key obstacle to the adoption of more advanced mobile services, mobile operators must provide pricing regimes which are fixed for unlimited use, transparent and affordable. We also see some acceptance towards paying by time of use for mobile music and mobile TV services, pointing towards streamed services as a possible solution.
“As other sources for mobile services open up, such as side-loading and pod-casting, backed by the high interest in Bluetooth connectivity that we are seeing, it is getting ever more critical for service or content providers to peg their services competitively.”
Harun added: “Cost is the quick fix and should provide fast usage uplift especially amongst those services already found interesting by consumers, such as songs downloads and realtime TV.”
IDC’s recently released Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker said that the worldwide mobile phone market is edging closer to one billion units shipped for the year, with a total of 254.9 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2006 (see Worldwide Mobile Phone Market Sees Record Shipments).
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