Two thirds of the UK population have mobile phones, but many do not realise their potential uses beyond talking, according to research conducted for the BMRBi Access Omnibus Telephone Omnibus during February this year.
The survey found that only 85% of those with mobile phones believe they have text messaging facilities and only 13% believe they have a WAP-enabled phone, whereas in both cases, the actual incidence is thought to be higher.
Among the 4m UK adults who believe they have a WAP-enabled phone, only 37%, or 1.5m, have used the facility in the past 4 weeks. Of this 1.5m, 78% were men. The most popular applications for WAP users were sending or receiving emails (39%), followed by reading sports news (35%), general news (26%) and entertainment news (20%).
For those with WAP who haven’t used it in the last four weeks, the most common reason, cited by 33% of respondents, was that it just wasn’t needed. This figure was found to be similar for both regular internet users and non-internet users. A further 31% said that they hadn’t used it because they didn’t know how to, while 5% said it was too expensive.
The gender bias in WAP usage was not found to be true in the use of SMS, where 49% of those who had used SMS in the last four weeks were found to be female.
The survey found that around 3 million WAP phones could be purchased in the UK by August this year, as over a fifth of current mobile phone owners expect to change their phones within the next 6 months, while 14% of those who are yet to purchase a mobile say they are planning to within the same time period. A third of those planning on a new phone expect to get one which is WAP-enabled.
