The mobile industry has been urged to concentrate on targeting young women and business orientated men in the battle to convince the public of the merits of GPRS and 3G services.
According to analysts at
Forrester Research, only 20% of European mobile users will adopt 2.5G and 3G applications in the next two years. This is despite the fact that 72% of Europeans aged 16 or older own and use a mobile phone.
“As the price of mobile calls continues to fall, SMS is the only true non-voice service that consumers are willing to pay for today,” said Forrester Analyst Paul Jackson.” While ownership of WAP-enabled phones increased to 23% this year, only 3% of mobile users use WAP. To cap operators’ misery, only 24% of mobile users say that they would be willing to pay for any mobile application via their mobile phones.”
In the report, Segmenting Europe’s Mobile Consumers, Forrester drew from its Consumer Technographics Q2 European study which looked into mobile usage in seven major markets. It concluded that young women, who account for 14% of the mobile population, represent a potentially lucrative market as they are prolific users of phones for entertainment purposes. In particular, they are seen as “key adopters of conversational content” and therefore more than likely to sign up for new services such as MMS and IM.
Forrester also recommends that operators and manufacturers focus on career-motivated, high-income professional men, a group which accounts for 15% of European mobile users.
“These consumers want technologies that will help them organize work tasks, stay in contact with colleagues, and single them out as innovators,” said Jackson. “They are also less sensitive to price than the average consumer, and they will upgrade through employer subsidies or corporate handset procurement.”
In the short term, handset makers are advised to push desirable GPRS phones this Christmas and look to promote games, MMS and IM functions in the next few years. This echoes the sentiments of a GartnerG2 report, out this week, which called on the mobile industry to lower its 3G aspirations and concentrate on offering services that will directly benefit the consumer (see Mobile Industry Too Obsessed With 3G, Says GartnerG2).
