Archive for July, 2009

Curious Results of a Research Conducted in Several Countries

Friday 3 July 2009 @ 11:00 am

Lightspeed Research company has published results of its latest research aimed at defining functions of mobile phones that are popular among users now and will be popular in the future.
Mobile devices have entered our lives and are continuously enlarging their place in it. The latest mobile phones have a wide range of possibilities – that is why the company has decided to conduct a research and see which of them are really worth to be retained in future devices.
The research covered four countries: the UK, France, Germany, and USA. According to the data obtained, 49% of Americans and 30% of British confirmed they are treating their mobile devices as an indispensable part of life. Almost half of British (46%) do not part with their mobile phones at all. This category of users covers those aged between 55 and 64 years old.
Younger mobile users (18-34 years old) compare their mobile phones with a life compass they cannot life without. For instance, two thirds or 67% of British leave their phones switched on at night and only 14% of users switch them to silent mode.
“No” to Outcoming Calls
Perhaps, nobody expected the research to reveal the following trend: quite a large group of mobile users does not make calls at all. This category consists of 11% of British and 13% of Americans. Two outgoing calls a week are OK for 33% of British and 18% of American mobile phone users.
SMS messaging is treated differently and is very popular in the UK: 49% of British send at least a message a day while 2% send a picture or MMS message.
Women (56%) like sending SMS messages more than men (42%), who prefer voice communication (41%) to it, the former being less popular among women (32%).
Camera
Most of modern mobile phones are equipped with a camera and have various software and hardware based functions. Some mobile users do not find these features useful while they are becoming more and more popular.
Daily access to Internet has become a tradition for 9% of British. Thirty eight percent of users use a camera several times a week, 22% of mobile users surf the web and play games, and 18% send photos and videos to their friends.
Preferences of Mobile Phone Users
Four thousand participants of the research were offered to name functions they wanted their device to support. The satellite navigation system took the first place in all four countries (the UK, France, Germany, USA) with 49% of French, 44% of German, 43% of British, and 38% of Americans.
The opportunity to locate friends by means of a GPS-enables mobile device took the second place in all countries except Germany because of privacy rights.
It is worth mentioning that the Japanese system transforming the mobile phone into a tool to pay the public transport fare has aroused interest only in Germany. The key reason for such a low popularity of the service in other countries can be explained by the fact that a mobile device becomes more accessible to thieves. Moreover, some mobile network operators cannot technically handle a great number of requests made by the system.
Summing up, CEO of Lightspeed Research said that the mobile phone has become both an important and convenient business tool and a thing that attracts thieves’ attention. In addition, devices more often than not contain confidential data, protection of which will soon become the most important task for mobile phone manufacturers and mobile software developers.
Source: GSMPress ® in cooperation with Lightspeed Research