US Consumers Keen on Advanced Mobile Services - Report
Mobile subscribers in the United States are ready to catch up with their global peers - including closing the gap on the world's most advanced users in Korea and China - in the adoption of new cellular innovations that make mobile devices sing, play and work harder than ever before, according to more than 5,000 global respondents of a new Siemens Communications survey.
"While a wide gap remains between the number of sophisticated mobile consumers in the United States versus the rest of the world, the U.S. consumer appetite for future adoption of advanced service features suggests that the mobile technology gap will close in the years ahead," said Harald Braun, president, Networks Division, Siemens Communications Inc. "U.S. consumers are ready to get additional entertainment and productivity value out of mobile telephones, PDAs and other cellular devices."
According to the Siemens survey, U.S. and World Demand for Wireless Applications, topping the U.S. mobile applications wish list are:
- Mobile e-mail services, already used by many U.S. consumers today, to manage both office and private e-mails, calendars and contact lists - 69% said they are interested.
- Mobile music services for access to a radio station or to download songs and listen to them in their mobile devices - 56 percent.
- Mobile television services to allow the watching of existing television channels or to enable the downloading and playback of specific video content - 53 percent.
Forty-seven percent of U.S. mobile consumers also expressed interest in enriched voice call services that, as examples, would enable a consumer to share pictures or data while talking on a mobile phone or turn a voice session into a video call using the phone's camera. Mobile gaming (47 percent), which is also in use by many U.S. consumers today, also tops the wish list, followed by group voice communication (47%) and mobile file sharing (44%) applications.
Not only do U.S. consumers have an appetite for more advanced mobile applications, they are also willing to pay, on average, 10% more each month to add new services.
Closing the Mobile Applications Gap
While 21% of the rest of the world already uses mobile devices to access advanced entertainment applications such as downloading music, video streaming or gaming, only 11% of U.S. consumers have used such features - a gap of nearly two-to-one. However, 52% of U.S. mobile users say they are likely to purchase such services in the future compared to 62% of non-U.S. consumers - closing the usage gap to 20 percent.
A similar scenario exists for the use of newer productivity-focused mobility features. About 15% of non-U.S. consumers have used advanced mobile productivity tools (mobile e-mail, enriched voice services and file sharing) compared to 11% of U.S. consumer - a 36% gap. Looking ahead, 64% of non-U.S. consumers versus 52% of U.S. mobile customers want such services in the near future - a 23% difference.
The world outside of the United States, especially the Asian mobile applications market, is probably more than two years ahead, Braun said. Although the United States is catching up, much of the nation remains without 3G coverage, a delay that has a lot to do with immense geographical size of the country and a continued reliance on wired network infrastructures that have yet to be fully monetized.
The United States, a first adopter of mobile technologies, is now playing catch-up with countries like Japan that did not fully enter the fray until after the turn of the century. When countries like Japan began mobile network build-outs, they began with more advanced foundations of next-generation 3G networks.
"In many ways, the United States is paying the price of being an early adopter," Braun said. "But the U.S. market still has the potential to be one of the largest mobile markets in the world."
About the Survey
The Siemens LifeWorks survey, U.S. and World Demand for Wireless Applications, was conducted at the end of 2005 to identify global mobile application trends. More than 5,300 mobile communication subscribers were surveyed online and via phone during November. About 1,000 U.S. mobile communication subscribers were surveyed. Other countries surveyed included Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Korea and Russia. Margin of error: +/- 2 percent.
You can download a PowerPoint presentation with detailed results from our website - http://www.cellular-news.com/images/press/Siemens_LifeWorks_survey_2006.ppt"
Posted to the site on 6th June 2006
