Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Mobile Device Costs a Barrier to Usage

People in some emerging markets who say they do not use mobile phones also indicate that device costs are a big barrier. Also, device costs are a major barrier for people who say they share a phone, a study by Pew Research finds. 


“When asked for the primary reason they share a mobile phone, an eight-country median of 34 percent say they do so largely because they cannot afford their own,” Pew Research says. 




A median of seven percent of people across 11 countries surveyed say they do not own a phone but do use someone else’s regularly. 




Sharing tends to be more common among adults with less education and lower levels of income, the report suggests. For example, 12 percent of Filipinos with lower levels of educational attainment report sharing a phone, compared with four percent of those with more education. 


Lower income is a factor in countries like India, where individuals with lower incomes (17 percent) are nearly twice as likely to share a phone as those with higher incomes (nine percent).


In India, significantly more women (20 percent) than men (five percent) report sharing a device with someone else. In other countries, there are small or no differences between men and women with regard to their likelihood of sharing a phone.


To be sure, respondents also indicate that the cost of mobile data at least occasionally find mobile data costs an issue. 


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