Market research company TNS Global Technology Insights yesterday released information about a recent study it conducted regarding the use of 3G mobile phone services both in the U.S. and around the world.
Despite the fact that 3G enables “consumers to use their mobile phones more interactively and for a wider range of applications, including transmitting voice and data simultaneously,” these types of services are not being used by as many consumers as one might think, the report says.
In the U.S., TNS says in the report, 16 percent of mobile phone users own 3G-enabled handsets, but only 10 percent of those consumers actually make use of the enhanced features. The numbers aren’t much better globally: 20 percent have 3G, nine percent use it.
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why that it is? <pause>
Drum-roll, please...
...and the winner is: cost.
“Cost appears to be the greatest barrier to broader adoption of 3G technology,” TNS says. “Americans are more likely than their global counterparts to consider cost as a barrier to adopting advanced services.”
Other factors keeping people from adopting 3G include network speed, battery life, screen size, image quality and memory—but “their impact pales in comparison to that of cost.”
So if people don’t care about 3G, or if they find the cost prohibitive, what features are they looking for in a phone/mobile service? Some of the deal-makers, according to TNS, are mobile Internet, e-mail, and mobile gaming.
If you’re saying, “Now wait a minute, aren’t those next-generation services?” the answer is yes—but it depends on what generation you’re talking about. The 3G versions of these services, TNS notes, are more advanced.
TNS says that, cost aside, many users don’t seem to realize that 3G offers enhanced versions of the types of services they’re already looking for.
In the report, Don Ryan, VP of Technology and Media at TNS, compares the adoption of 3G to that of cable modems/DSL (an upgrade from dial-up Internet).
“It took consumers a period of time to understand how much faster they could access the Internet with cable and DSL compared to their dial-up modems,” Ryan says.
If vendors and service providers are frustrated by the slow adoption of 3G, they may want work harder to increase the functionality and availability of mobile entertainment and mobile commerce services.
“Directional research shows that Americans have the highest usage rates of on-line gambling and on-line shopping services of consumers in any country,” TNS says in its report. Already 40 to 50 percent of Americans who use mobile TV, electronic banking, location services, and online gaming access these services daily—compared to 20-25 percent for the rest of the world.
Recent U.S. legislation banning the use of credit cards for online gambling has stymied the advancement of that type of service. But that’s hardly the only type of 3G entertainment service that providers can make available to consumers. (There’s still mobile TV, for example).
My take? 3G simply is a newer technology, and as such is in the early stages of adoption. If it proves useful and fun enough, in time the masses will jump on board.
What do you think?
