Convenience Drives Phone Innovation, Apps

Recession or not, for good reason there’s no shortage of innovation in the mobile media industry (e.g. iPhone 3.0, the upcoming Palm Pre). The bottom line: consumers still want more! According to recent research across the United States and western Europe conducted by The Nielsen Company on behalf of Tellabs, consumers are still bullish on the use of the mobile device beyond voice-calling services, and plan on continuing to adopt and use mobile data services. Of the 200 million current users of advanced mobile data services across the United States and Europe, almost 60 percent intend to use mobile data services more in the next 24 months, and of the millions of non-users, more than 25 percent intend to adopt mobile data services in the next 24 months.



Not only are U.S. users leading in their expectation of use of the mobile Internet, but also in their frequency of use. Seventy-one percent of current users expect to use the mobile Internet daily, if not several times a day, whereas 41 percent of Europeans expect to have such a high frequency of use.

What’s driving this trend is consumers’ expectations of how using mobile data services will add convenience and improve their lifestyle, and how this aligns with current capabilities of the mobile platform. Making consumers’ lives easier is the most important factor driving increased use in the United States.



When conducting the research, we also looked at other lifestyle factors including work, entertainment and socializing. The “work” lifestyle was also a big factor in boosting use of select mobile data services in the United States. These differences emerge even in the use of software/applications -- entertainment was more of a driving factor for use in France, Germany and Spain, but was not as relevant in the United States.

Given the current capability of the mobile platform and consumers’ current perceptions of how they would use it, keep your eyes on mobile marketing applications focused on convenience (shopping, coupons and commerce) first, and pure entertainment down the road.
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