Mobile usage hasn't changed for 5 years

Research from connectivity specialist AppTrigger reveals that 57% of UK adults and 30% of North Americans say they've not changed the way in which they use mobiles since 2003. Voice calls and text messages are still the main applications. [Source: Cellular-News.com]

Most mobile users would view ads to cut bills

Business software company Transverse has published new research that says 61% of mobile phone users (in the USA) would view advertising on their phones if it meant their monthly bills were less. The figure varied according to the level of discount, with 56% happy to view ads for a discount of between 25 and 50%. In addition, 46% of users said this level of discount was enough of an incentive to provide access to their usage patterns. Users under the age of 35 were most receptive to the idea of discounts for viewing mobile advertising. [Press release]

Credit crunch causes mobile users to change upgrade plans

Mobile application developer GetJar has just published the results of its first Mobile Attitudes poll, which shows that mobile phone users around the world are delaying plans to upgrade or buy new handsets because of the global economic crisis. 78% of users worldwide are delaying plans to upgrade or buy a new mobile phone, and 76% are cutting the amount they spend on mobile usage. When asked whether they’d reduced spending on mobile phones in the previous 12 months, more than half hadn’t reduced their spending at all or had cut it by less than 10%. [MobileAttitudes.org]

Mobiles loved and well-used in US

60% of mobile phone owners in the USA say they carry their phones at all times, even inside the home, according to the new How People Use Cell Phones report from Knowledge Networks. This figure is up 50% since 2002. And when asked what they dislike about their handsets, the most popular answer - from 15% of respondents - was "Nothing". Customers aged 13 to 29 send an average of 20 text messages daily, compared to just two for those aged 30-43 and and less than one for ages 44 to 64. [Press release]

35% of Brits use their mobile on the toilet

A survey from digital consumer magazine igizmomag.co.uk has highlighted some odd behaviour when using mobile phones. The survey of nearly 10,000 consumers aged 16 - 45 found that over a third had chatted to friends on a mobile whilst on the toilet, 2% of mobile users have chatted whilst at a funeral and 1.2% had held a mobile conversation whilst having sex. Not surprisingly, 20% of people had been told by friends, family or colleagues that they used their mobile too much. [Press release]

5.6 billion mobiles worldwide by 2013

There'll be 5.6 billion active mobile phones worldwide by 2013, compared with 3.9 billion in 2008, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. 80% of the growth is coming from the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa regions, although they don't contribute the same percentage to global revenue. 3G networks will account for half of all mobile subscriptions by 2013. When users with more than one phone are removed from the calculations, this means that more than half of the world’s population will be using mobile phones by early 2010. [Press release]

USA ahead of UK for mobile browsing

Smartphone users in the USA are spending an average of four hours and thirty eight minutes per month browsing the mobile web, compared with two and a half hours per month in Britain, according to a survey of 3,500 people by M:Metrics. The favourite site for mobile users in the United States is Craigslist, where users spend an average one hour and thirty-nine minutes per month - and in the UK it's Facebook, where users stay for an average of one hour and forty-five minutes. The company says one of the main reasons for the difference in browsing time is that flat-rate data plans are more popular in the United States, where almost 11% of users have an unlimited data plan compared with 2.3% in the UK. They also say more US smartphones have QWERTY keyboards... and there are more smartphones in the UK. [Press release]

Ofcom figures show mobile usage increasing over fixed-line

Ofcom's update for the fourth quarter of 2007 shows that fixed-line voice call volumes were 10% lower year-on-year, while mobile call volumes grew by 18% in the same period (and by 6% from the previous quarter). In addition, Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile customers sent 15.7 billion SMS and MMS messages in Q4 2007, a 14% increase on the previous quarter. [Ofcom summary; PDF report]

The majority of the world's population will soon have a mobile phone

The number of mobile phone users around the world will overtake the number of non-users in the next few months, according to a report from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union. Eight years ago, only 12% of the global population had a mobile phone. The ITU said the estimated figure of 3.3 billion subscribers was taken from operator figures and didn't take into account people who had more than one phone, unused accounts or people who shared their phone. Meanwhile, Telecom Trends International says the number of mobile subscriptions has gone well over three billion, but the number of users is 2.6 billion because many users have multiple devices or use multiple SIM cards. They reckon global mobile subscriptions will reach five billion by 2014, with 4.1 billion users. [Sources: AP via Google, Cellular-News.com]

More SMS records forecast for New Year's Eve

Airwide Solutions, the company that worked with Vodafone to send the world's first text message, has forecast the number of SMS messages expected on 31st December 2007 and 1st January 2008. It expects the USA to send almost 730 million messages and the UK to send 280 million messages. However, China - which doesn't celebrate its New Year until February - will send more messages than both countries. An average day in China sees 1.6 billion texts sent. [Source: Cellular-News.com]

2.3 trillion texts predicted for 2008

Researchers at Gartner reckon that 2.3 trillion messages will be sent worldwide in 2008, almost a 20% increase from this year's total of 1.9 trillion messages. Revenue from these messages will grow by 15.7% in 2008 to $60.2 billion (£30.4 billion). Western Europe is expected to send 215 billion of those messages - up from 202 billion in 2007.

Orange reveals mobile data growth

UK mobile network Orange has just released its second Digital Media Index, comparing digital mobile usage with its first survey from May 2007. The Orange Digital Media Index shows that:

• Picture messaging has increased by 37%, with over 1 million photos uploaded from mobiles to online photo albums in August (although arguably this second statistic isn't "picture messaging"). So-called 'active' MMS users send an average 4.3 picture messages per month.
• Text messaging has increased by 25% to a billion text messages sent per month, which is an average 71 per customer
• Music downloads have increased by 15%
• Games downloads have increased by 3.4%

Overall, the company says mobile data services account for nearly 22% of network revenue in the last nine months.