TGI: Usage of mobile phone applications
In his latest report for MediaTel NewsLine, TGI media analyst James McCombe looks at usage of mobile phone applications, revealing that 42% of mobile phone owners receive adverts on their mobiles…
Forty percent of adult mobile phone owners (8.9m) receive adverts from their mobile provider and 7% (1.6m) receive adverts from other companies. Approaching 20% (1.8m) of those who receive adverts to their mobile respond to them.
Those who respond tend to be younger, with an even gender split. More than half are aged 15-34. Amongst these young mobile owners, those who respond to mobile ads have a distinctive attitudinal profile.
They are 65% more likely than their peers to go in for competitions in newspapers and magazines, 60% more likely to be interested in financial services advertising and 60% more likely to say that celebrities influence their purchase decisions.
About 5% of mobile owners (2.2m) subscribe to a mobile service such as live TV or text alerts. Text alerts are the most common subscription service, approaching 700,000 subscribers.
TGI M:Metrics data show more than a fifth of British mobile owners access mobile media, a figure that looks set to grow as phones with internet capability and Smartphones become more widespread. The proportion of mobile owners whose phone has internet capability has risen to 44%, up from 36% in 2004.
Twelve per cent of mobile owners access the internet through their phone and 2% (960,000) do so regularly. These mobile owners are an attractive target – people who access the internet through their phone are 45% more likely than those who don’t to make purchases online (though not necessarily using their phone to do so).
Other features to show strong growth in terms of usage include mobile phone cameras, video cameras, picture messaging applications, Bluetooth and MP3 capability.
TGI figures show that two-and-a-half million mobile phone owners (6%) now use mobile email, up from 1.9m in 2007. Over the same period, the proportion of mobile owners using SMS text messaging has started to fall. SMS usage peaked in 2006 at 65% of mobile owners (27m), but has since declined to 57% (around 25m). This is perhaps a consequence of the rise in use of smart devices such as the Blackberry and iPhone.
Over 70% of those who send and receive email on their mobile are men and they are 80% more likely than the average mobile owner to be aged 25-34. They are also 25% more likely to be in the top social grades (AB).
Approaching 30% of mobile owners download content to their phones. Ringtones remain the most common download, used by 6m phone owners (14%), followed by games, pictures, music and video. TGI M:Metrics shows that 1.6m mobile owners (4%) use their phone to access blogs, social networking or content sharing sites.