About 13 percent of U.S. mobile phone owners say they "never" make calls on their devices. Altogether, about 24 percent make calls once a week or less, according to Lightspeed Research. That's a shocking statistic for devices known as "mobile phones."
One might draw several conclusions from the results. It is possible that, for many users, the mobile is helpful, but not something that adds value on a daily basis. The other likely conclusion to be drawn is that text communications are, for many users, a preferred or reasonable substitute for voice, as email has displaced a huge amount of voice communications.
If so, the findings indicate the clear emergence of usage patterns centered around texting or mobile Internet activities rather than voice, and the importance for mobile service providers of migrating revenue models to primary reliance on data-related services and applications.
In many cases, it would seem to make sense to lead with data plans and features, and then add on voice only afterwards. It also would seem to make sense to plans and devices specifically optimized for text and Web applications.
That would be a reversal of historic practice, where voice plans lead and text plans or data plans are an add on.
But the practice would not be without precedent. Most BlackBerry users likely are more interested in mobile email than mobile voice. They want the voice feature, as many users buy primarily for voice, but want the texting feature. Most iPhone users likely value mobile Web access as much as voice or text messaging.
The point is that mobility has become a multi-product business, with lots of different ways to create devices and service plans that appeal to different user populations.
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