Mobile Internet Access is Big with Users 18-34; VoIP Much Less So

When asked what was most important in choosing their next mobile service provider, younger European users 18 to 34 reported they value “more data,” not more texting allowances or bigger voice buckets of use, a survey by Analysys Mason suggests.

The survey also suggests that use of mobile VoIP isn’t as common as sometimes thought.

In fact, Analysys Mason concludes, the conditions for mass market adoption of VoIP on smartphones “do not currently exist.”

Still, VoIP services are most popular with the youngest age group, with more than 10 percent of those under the age of 35 using a VoIP service, Analysys Mason says.

Nor has IP-based messaging fully displaced text messaging, though the process is underway, one might argue.

“Operators will note that despite the high penetration levels of IP-based alternatives, full messaging service substitution has not yet occurred,” says Stephen Sale, Analysys Mason principal analyst.

On the other hand, a bigger bucket of voice usage was the top desire of users in every age bracket other than 18 to 34.

The 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 age groups have widely contrasting approaches compared with older smart phone users, particularly in relation to VoIP, IP messaging and social media services such as Skype, WhatsApp Messenger and Facebook. That won’t surprise you.

More than half of surveyed smart phone respondents 18 to 24 year in the United Kingdom, for example,  use IP-based messaging.

The survey of 6610 consumers 18 or older in France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and United States also found that only 20 percent of those 65 and over do so.

Text messaging is used by 91 percent of those 18 to 34 but only 67 percent of those 65 and over.

That isn’t to say mobile VoIP or IP messaging are not threats anywhere. In some markets, there seems to be quite a lot of substitution, in others the problem still is rather minimal.

But the survey results do show the wisdom of making Internet access the variable cost portion of a mobile bill. That is the service people increasingly value, above voice and texting, at least in terms of usage quotas.

Criteria for choosing next mobile service

Question: "Which of the following factors would most attract you to your next mobile tariff/contract?" n = 1073