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Mobile users turned off by latest media services

by Joe Lepper, Brand Republic 21-Aug-07, 11:40

LONDON - The number of people consuming media via mobile phones is declining in the UK according to new research, with internet access and radio listening among the habits being lost.

The 2007 Mobile Phone Report by Continental Research shows that the level of mobile users using add-on features has dropped in eight of 11 categories.

Just 12% of mobile users surveyed for the report now access the internet compared with 14% last year. Radio listening has declined by two percentage points over the last year to 9% and only 6% of users pay for a text information service, compared to 7% the previous year.

Downloading video clips is down from 5% in 2006 to 4% this year, while only 1% of mobile users watch TV on their phones, compared to 2% in 2006.

Despite this apparent consumer apathy to much of the latest mobile media, photo messaging and game downloading are both up and MP3 listening has remained steady since 2006 at 15%.

The biggest drop-off is in the downloading of ringtones, which has slumped to 10%, from 16% last year.

The report's author James Myring says that mobile consumers are now looking for simplicity and affordability, rather than extra services.

He said: "Clearly a majority of mobile users are not particularly interested in the latest in mobile design and technology, and are more attracted by simplicity and economy. Only a minority are prepared to pay more to be at the cutting edge."

The research also found that among mobile phone companies O2 is the most successful in attracting the most valuable customers, with 37% of its customers saying they would be prepared to pay more for the latest technology, compared to just 26% of T-Mobile, 21% of Orange and 23% of Vodafone customers.

Myring said: "Some credit for this must surely go down to the innovative advertising and marketing for O2 which has involved sponsorship for a wide range of music events and of course the former Millennium Dome."

Comments

Michael Potts - 21/08/2007

I can believe this - people are getting fed up of ringtone overkill – on websites and with adverts every 2 minutes on music programmes. Other add-ons, such as mp3 players – they just slow the phone down, and generally aren’t as good as proper mp3 players, and digital cameras on phones are crap in comparison to proper digital cameras. Therefore the people with the money will tend to buy a mobile phone to use as a mobile phone, as opposed to being suckered in by the appeal of mp3 players etc which aren’t as good as what they probably already have. I would be surprised if photo messaging didn’t start to grow though, it’s quite popular in my house! All in my opinion, of course!

Mark Palmer - 21/08/2007

I find the whole skew of the headline and reporting rather bizarrre. a shift from 5% to 4% for downloading video clips or 2% to1% for watching TV is almost sampling error. Conversely, photo messaging and game downloading are up. The ring tone drop off is noticeable and logical, but that has been around for ages. So why oh why is this headlined " Mobile users turned off by latest media services". Of course there may also be other factors that are the cause of why services have not boomed. Giiven data tariffs are coming down perhaps an underlying reason was the worry about the cost of using services rather than the services themselves. Look beyond the questions...