New Mobile Habits

Spotted this report on mobile phone usership in Germany - entitled 'Mobiles just for phoning and texting'. That old chestnut. Actually, once you look at the figures a bit more closely, it's not quite true - whilst phoning and texting are indeed the most commonly used functions, the numbers aren't that low for additional features. Considering that still not every phone has a camera, 46% usership ain't that bad. Plus there's considerable use of older functions - 48% calendar and 55% alarm clock. I wouldn't go along with the article's conclusion that many extra functions are 'superfluous' - in fact all our experience in the sector indicates that consumers are quite happy to see mobiles as multi-functional personal techno-hubs. However, there seems to be a continued preference for handset-centric features vs for services that generate revenue for operators. The adoption of camera compares with much lower figures for MMS use as does the emerging use of mp3 on the phone but pitifull uptake of mobile downloads. German Internet use as reported in the above survey remains low at 10%. Having spent years talking to consumers about moibles and mobile services I'm convinced that the biggest barrier to mobile service use remains price - though user experience may also play a part. In sending MMS, downloading, using mp3s etc, consumers must acquire new habits and it is just a general human truth that we tend only to do so if it is made easy for us and/or there is a clear benefit. Where there are old ingrained habits to overcome, or althernatives on offer (eg downloading or Internet use from a PC) people are either likely to remain conservative and/or will vote with their pockets. Calendar, alarm clock and camera use have taken off not only because these functions seem intuitively 'logically' to fit into your personal hub device (and I'd expect that the same will be true for mp3s) but because there is no financial barrier to using them and you don't need a PHD to work out how to. If mobile operators and handset manufacturers really want people to get into using the Net more and get into the wave of newer services, they will need to make them easier to use but possibly most importantly they're like to have to lower prices. I saw an ad for an operator in the UK this week promising mobile TV for 10p. Good luck to them. I have no doubt it's the way to go if they want to get people into a new habit. Talking of new mobile habits - this is from last year, sorry if people have seen it...