Study: Just One in Five Mobile Phone Owners Use Mobile Internet Every Day
Study: Just One in Five Mobile Phone Owners Use Mobile Internet Every Day
Posted 02/24/2011 at 9:45am
| by Paul Lilly
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A new study reveals that Internet usage among mobile phone owners isn't a daily task for the vast majority of users. As outlined in Antenna Software's 2011 Mobile Internet Attitudes Report, only one in five American mobile phone owners fire off emails, surf the Web, or perform other Internet-related activities on a daily basis, even though their phones are technically capable of doing so. What gives?
Janky phones is a big reason why that number isn't higher. Even though nearly half of the 4,375 respondents said they would like to use mobile Internet every day to keep in touch with friends via IMing (22 percent) and social networking (27 percent), feature phone users cite poor user experience as a major barrier to using the Internet. This problem was the reason 44 percent said they don't use mobile Internet, even though it's available to them.
"Operators and enterprises must do more to ensure a compelling and rewarding Internet and application experience is had by consumers on all mobile devices -- not just smartphones," said Jim Hemmer, President and CEO of Antenna Software. "Today's consumer expects a rich, high-quality Internet experience whether surfing on their PC or on their mobile device. Operators and enterprises must ensure their mobile Internet websites and applications can be rendered optimally across the broadest range of handsets -- or risk lost revenue opportunities and impaired customer satisfaction and brand loyalty."
Cost is another barrier. Even with flat-rate plans thrown into the mix, a third of all Americans said it was just too expensive to access the Internet from their mobile phones.
Image Credit: watblog.com
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Pete291
February 28, 2011 at 10:25am
Interesting results which match (in total) with another survey I've recently seen for Germany & UK (see below).
However, what is even more important (at least from a marketeers & developers PoV) is what different user groups are in existence, how these groups can be found and (maybe the most important thing) how the user groups differ.
Have a look for yourself:
reutnes
February 24, 2011 at 4:23pm
Phones have such awful battery life for some reason. I could do all sorts of things with my phone, but I really need it for texts, emails, and phone calls and the last thing I need is for some other app to suck up the battery. My iPod touch does all the musicy facebookey stuff so my phone can.. be a phone. I save a lot of money on data plans this way, as well. WiFi is everywhere.
nsvander
February 24, 2011 at 12:16pm
Why do you guys continue to post survey results that are so skewd? Who calls 4375 people a valid survey. What is the actuall number of smart phones with web access? In the US its something like 42.7 million!!! How can this be a vaild survey, so out of 42.7 million users we polled 4375, that comes out to .010% of the actual users. Survey Fail!!!!!
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1793-Chart-of-the-Week-Smartphone-Usage-Grows-Especially-Android
MrBlueCheese
February 24, 2011 at 10:10pm
Survey's don't have to be in the millions to be valid you know.
In fact, 4,375 is quite a lot for a survey.
What is skewed is your trying to trample over perfectally valid results.
MrBlueCheese
February 24, 2011 at 10:13pm
Double post, sorry.
There really needs to be some way to delete and/or review posts (possibly with a spell checker) before sending them to the server.
wolfing
February 24, 2011 at 12:14pm
why should they? I have unlimited internet in my phone, that doesn't mean that I should use it all the time. It's there when I need it, that's all that I want it for. I have a TV, I don't turn it on every day.
spoonard
February 24, 2011 at 11:00am
What gives? Ultra crappy pricing ratios, that's what gives! Home internet users would be 1 in 5 as well if, say, Comcast had pricing tiers like Verizon or AT&T. Cell carriers are still charging per MB, when they should be charging per GB. There is no real competition between carriers is another problem. They all have to similar priceing plans for their internet which leads me to believe they are all in cahoots. Unlimited internat is on it's way out when it should be a standard. Companies are increasing the speed of thier networks, which is great, but they need to up the cpacity as well so they can stop crying about how thier networks are overloaded and they can't afford to offer unlimited access to smartphone users (who by the way make up a tiny percentage of overall cell users in the first place!) Ok, rant over.
Fecal Face
February 24, 2011 at 10:48am
My parents always told me I was one in a million, but I guess I'm just one in five. :(
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