Link: People Taking Their BlackBerry Handsets to Bed With Them

According to a recent research conducted for AOL by Opinion Research Corporation, 43% of American mobile email users are so addicted they take their device to bed with them. 

The survey also found that the average email user checks mail about five times a day, and 59% with mobile email jump straight on the case everytime a new mail arrives. 

Rather concerningly, around 40% of those surveyed plan their holiday around the availability of access to their email, and 83% admit to checking their mail while away. 

Link: Ins and outs of teen sex, as told via SMS - National - theage.com.au

In research carried out in Australia, teens say that “dumping” a partner by text is the lowest way to end a relationship - and feel it’s a cruel way to act towards the other person.

The research also found that mobiles are increasingly becoming a tool to control partners, with excessive text messages used by teens in some relationships.

Link: BBC NEWS | Health | Phone mast allergy ‘in the mind’

The BBC are reporting some interesting results from a recent study into so called ‘phone mast allergy’.

Mobile phone masts are not responsible for the symptoms of ill health some blame them for, a major UK study says. Dozens of people who believed the masts trigger symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials.

But when they thought the signal was on they reported more distress, suggesting the problem has a psychological basis.

Of course this doesn’t mean sticking your head next to a mobile phone antenna all day won’t give you a cracking headache, but it’s interesting news all the same.

Mobile phones | Talk talk | Economist.com

The Economist has got some interesting stats on mobile phone penetration in the 30 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which includes most of Europe, North America and parts of Asia-Pacific.

THE number of mobile-phone subscribers in the 30 countries of the OECD reached nearly 933m in 2005, equivalent to around 80 for every 100 people. Tiny Luxembourg has the highest penetration rate, with 157.3 subscribers for every 100 people. Indeed, it is one of 14 countries in which there are more subscribers than people. This is partly because users increasingly have several SIM cards for use with the same phone. The rapid growth in pre-pay accounts—from 4% of total subscriptions in 1997 to 42% in 2005—is also a factor, as such accounts often lie inactive. South Korea and Japan are the only countries with more third-generation (3G) phone subscribers than 2G ones.

This is pretty neat. I got a note in from Voxpops.com to tell me that they’ve just recently launched a video research library facility on their site. The library features 750+ videos of consumer research on topics ranging from the environment to health and covering all demographics. The key area of interest to me of course is ‘mobile’.

They’ve got a whole section dedicated to mobile including topics like What mobile phone tariff are you on? What do you look for in a mobile provider? and What functions are important to you on your mobile.

You can listen to the audio for free and read the transcript (e.g. see this link for an example), but if you’d like the video you have to pay. Fair enough. £95 a pop. Brilliant if you’re trying to get a point across in a presentation and would like to show off a voxpop video highlighting or supporting your point.

I love this stuff. I do actually go about asking people about their mobile phones. It’s just fascinating to see what consumers thing of the technology and the medium. I’m going to see if I can get a demo mobile video from Voxpops to publish here.

Link: The Strangest Insurance Claims for “lost” Mobile Phones

Insurance company CPP have just unveiled the results of a poll of 3,000 UK mobile users. As well as the more commercially interesting figures - like people in Edinburgh and Glasgow make on average 126,368 calls on their mobile in their lifetime - there were some disturbing answers on why people claim on their insurance.

Here’s some of the silliest from the survey:

• A bird pooed on my window and the phone fell in a bucket of water - it’s the birds fault
• A sheep rammed me in a field and crushed my phone
• A thief stole it and hid it up his bottom
• It was stolen by a magpie - I could hear it ringing from a tree
• My two year old put it in her potty and wee’d on it
• My rabbit ate it

Absolutely brilliant. If you’re more into useful stats and research, and want an insight into the habits of the average Brit mobile user, there’s plenty more on the original article.

Link: Enterprise mobile costs ‘out of control’ - vnunet.com

Some interesting research here, that claims many companies have poorly managed and inefficient mobile phone systems.

Dustin Kehoe, principal analyst for telecom services at research firm Current Analysis, declared in a recent report that the costs for enterprise mobile services have spiralled out of control.

One of the major problems is employee behaviour. The analyst claims that as much as 20 per cent of all mobile calls made on business phones are personal, and that most expenses occur outside normal business hours, between 5pm and 7pm.

P2P fund transfers and mobile payments will generate transactions worth $22bn by 2011, predicts Juniper Research. In addition, they reckon 204m mobile phone users will be paying for services with their handsets by then. Interestingly this figure includes payments made using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology - already in daily use with London’s Oyster Card and the Octopus service in Hong Kong.

Greater availability of NFC devices, for physical mobile payments, coupled with secure and easy-to-use applications, backed by the large credit card organisations and financial institutions, will create the foundation for a healthy alternative to cash and other mainstream payment applications.

Report author Alan Goode said: “The technology is available now to enable secure and fast payments to be initiated on the mobile phone. The business model stills needs some work but there are positive signals emanating  from the industry  that will create considerable revenue for all parts of the ecosystem. I am cautiously optimistic for the future success of mPayments.”

According to the latest research just released by telecoms analysis company The Mobile World, there are now nearly 3.0 billion mobile users worldwide. The company says that figure is set to rise to over 3.25bn by the end of 2007, giving a global penetration rate of over 50%.

At the end of March 2007, there were 2.84 billion mobile phone connections worldwide, an increase of more than 135 million on the December 2006 number. This is the third strongest quarter in the industry’s history and by far the best ever first quarter.

Some other key points from the report, based on research covering January-March 2007: 

• 2.84 billion mobile users worldwide as at 31st March 2007.
• Global additions of 135 million in the quarter, 25% up on Q1 06. This is equivalent to more than 1,000 new customers every minute.
• The quarter saw the third largest increase in the industry’s history (after Q4 05 and Q4 06, +142m and +163m respectively).
• Mobile penetration in Europe now exceeds 100%, with 666 million connections.
• Over 250 million new handsets were sold in the quarter, another Q1 record

Link: Ingenio Data Attempts to Crack the Code on Mobile Usage

Research released today by pay-per-call provider Ingenio and market research firm Harris Interactive shows that around a quarter of US mobile users would accept mobile advertising.

26% of respondents favoured search-related text link ads, 21% said they wouldn’t mind listening to an audio ad that played instead of the normal ring tone whilst waiting for a call to answer, and 20% said text message ads would be acceptable.

Ad acceptance amongst younger generations was higher than their older counterparts, with 28% of mobile users aged 18-34 happy to receive text message advertising, versus only 14% for ages 45 upwards.

Link: M:Metrics News

According to recent research released by research company M:Metrics, Google is the number one site visited by UK and US mobile users, taking 30.94% and 62.48% respectively.

In the UK, mobile operator Orange come in at number two with 21.68%, and in the US search engine giant Yahoo! grab second place with 33.54% of visits.

Other companies hitting the UK top ten include the BBC (20.90%), Vodafone (16.79%) and eBay (13.08%). In the US, Microsoft grab 33.36%, AT&T 21.22% and Walt Disney gain 17% of visits from M:Metrics’ “panel of metered smartphone device owners”.

Link: Nearly 30 Million Amercians to Have Music Phones By End of Year

JupiterResearch has found that although US consumers are continuing to acquire music-capable mobile phones, only few take advantage of those capabilities. According to a new report only about five percent of consumers report sideloading songs onto their phone (i.e., transferring digital songs from a PC to a phone), and only two percent report downloading songs over the air.

Thus, although some 27.9 million US consumers are expected to have music phones by the end of this year, the music functionality of the phone will remain significantly underutilized.

Link: Welcome to www.dailyrecord.com - Morris County - Study: Teens texting for sex hookups and drugs

A study into texting habits amongst teens in Morris County, New Jersey, has uncovered that a growing number of conversations involve drugs and sex - and their parents are none the wiser.

The Caron Treatment Centers study conducted by Nielsen Buzzmetrics found that one in 10 messages analyzed involved teens seeking advice from their peers on how to take illicit drugs “safely” and without getting caught. The messages were posted on common online message boards, forums and social networks.

The study, which used software developed by Nielsen Buzzmeterics, also found that hooking up and having sex when drinking were the top behaviors discussed by teens. While a few teens expressed regret over things they did while drunk, many chalked it up to “fun,” “being wasted” and “having a good time.” While both genders discussed hooking up and sex, more girls than boys talked about it.

According to the survey, conducted between April 2006 and March 2007, more than 160,000 of the 10.3 million messages posted by teens were about drugs or alcohol - with almost 80 percent of the messages posted by teens mentioning alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and LSD.

Link: Bango Reports Fewer Refund for WAP Sites Compared to Premium SMS

Mobile billing experts Bango have just released some interesting statistics on consumer satisfaction for mobile purchases. The study shows that customers who purchase content through mobile websites are generally happier than those that do so via the traditional premium SMS route.

During the month of May, Bango reported just 142 refunds per 100,000 transactions; customer queries were closer to 70 per 100,000 transactions. So compelling is the data for off-portal WAP that network operators in Europe are showing a strong preference for this model and in the UK, WAP billing through the cross-operator “Payforit” scheme is being mandated.

Or to put it another way:

Compared to the traditional Premium SMS off-portal content model, where refunds can be between 10-20% of sales, off-portal WAP sites result in refunds for fewer than 1% of transactions, on average.

I’m all for Payforit - it’s long overdue. Hats off to Bango for being so open with these figures when they’re involved in both charging models.

Link: News Programs are Most Popular Mobile TV Service

Some interesting research, courtesy of Denmark’s largest telco TDC. In the past six months, since they launched their mobile TV service in the country, they have found the biggest attraction is news, news and more news.

During the clearing of the Youth Center, there was a period with four times as many unique users accessing mobile TV as on ordinary days. Similarly, the press conference where Bjarne Riis admitted to doping abuse almost doubled the viewers for the channels showing the news.

There’s some more interesting stats: the average TDC user watches mobile TV for 9-10 minutes a day over an average of 2.7 accesses each day. They’re also a bunch of compulsive channel surfers - the average viewing time per channels is 3.5 minutes.

The research findings were echoed by Bruce Renny, ROK TV’s Marketing Director, who says: “We entirely support these findings. Our experience through operating on-demand mobile TV over 2.5G, 3G and Wi-Fi in 9 countries worldwide is that mobile TV is viewed in short bursts of between 3 and 5 minutes each visit and approximately half of all views of mobile TV are for live news and sports updates. The other half of all views are for music videos and comedy clips and other made-for-mobile content.”

Bruce also said something else, but I’ll come back to that in a later post as it’s quite an interesting statement.

Link: Men Chat on Mobiles More Than Women - Just

In recent research commissioned by American mobile network AT&T, it turns out that men talk more on their mobiles than women - but only just.

The survey of about 1,000 users found that men average 458 minutes usage per month on their phones, with women just behind at an average of 453 minutes.

Some other interesting information came out, including 45% of subscribers use SMS, 44% use the camera; 17% play games on their mobile and 11% access email from their phones.

AT&T Wireless, formerly Cingular Wireless (and before that AT&T Wireless, and then called something else before that..) have been busy of late, what with their store rebranding ready for the launch of the Apple iPhone, for which they are the exclusive US partner. It’ll be interesting to see what next years survey - which incidently has been running annually since 2001 - reveals about iPhone trends (if anything).

Link: ENN - Ireland’s IT Newswire

According to a recent survey carried out by Irish telecoms regulator ComReg, texting is more popular in the country than phone calls.

The ComReg report, entitled ComReg Trends Survey Wave1, found that the average mobile user make five calls a day but sends seven text messages. Unsurprisingly, younger users are more prone to sending texts with the report finding that those in the 15-24 age group were the most prolific senders of text messages, averaging over eight per day. Men appear to be more talkative than women, based on the survey’s findings, as their average of six voice calls per day is higher than their female counterparts.

Link: The Nielsen Company :: Nielsen to Measure the Mobile Media Consumer

American research company Nielsen today announced it’ll begin measuring mobile phone users through a new service called Nielsen Wireless. This service will measure how many people use content services such as mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this has on established media behavior.

“The value of an entertainment medium is directly proportional to how well it is measured,” said Herrmann. “Reliable and accurate measurement of mobile consumers will enable advertisers to properly evaluate the mobile marketing opportunity. This new mobile measurement service demonstrates Nielsen’s continued commitment to follow content wherever consumers take it. Independent measurement of the cross-media behavior of the growing mobile audience will support and accelerate the evolution of mobile media business models.”

Understandable independent metrics are good. They help educate and persuade buyers, strengthens the industry’s offering, and help turn a technology into a saleable item.

The announcement also coincides with the release of some interesting statistics about mobile video usage in the USA.

– At least 7% of 18-34 year-olds viewed mobile video programming in the first quarter of 2007 while at least 25% used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet

  — As of May 31, more than half, 55%, of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total incomes of $75,000 or above.

  — Subscribers to different carriers vary in terms of cable status: people in Sprint households were 30% more likely than people in T-mobile households to have a digital broadcast satellite (DBS) system. People in Verizon Wireless households are 26% more likely to have digital \ cable service in their home (39% of Verizon Wireless household persons had wired digital cable compared to 31% of U.S. Persons 2+).

Link: Shd u txt, chat n drive? Young drivers say OK | Reuters

The majority of young U.S. drivers admit they chat on their cell phones and text message while driving — and almost a half of them see no reason to stop.

A survey by the Zogby International polling firm released on Wednesday found 66 percent of U.S. drivers aged between 18 and 24 send text messages while driving and 93 percent talk on their cell phone behind the wheel.

This compared to 16 percent of Americans cell phones owners overall texting behind the wheel and 77 percent talking on the phone while on the road.

But while 83 percent of Americans overall were in favor of making it illegal to text while driving, a move being considered by some states, the poll found greater resistance to stopping people from communicating while behind the wheel from younger drivers.

Link: SMS Continues as Biggest Messaging Revenue Earner for Operators

The word from the Global Messaging 2007 conference in Monte Carlo is SMS will continue to provide the mobile operators with their biggest messaging revenue earnings.

Pamela Clark Dickson, editor of Mobile Messaging Analyst published by Informa Telecoms and Media, noted at the event that messaging revenues are estimated to be nearing US$80 billion worldwide. SMS messaging was seen to be responsible for US$60 billion of this revenue.

“Predicting the demise of SMS has become like chasing a rainbow. Each year it moves further into the future,” said Dr Pieter E. Streicher. Dr Streicher attended the Global Messaging 2007 in his capacity as managing director of BulkSMS.com, a wireless application service provider.

 

Link: FTD.de - Business English - Business English - Board your flight by mobile phone

I’m all for mobile ticketing and anything that saves time - especially at the airport.

A passenger survey at the end of last year by the International Air Transport Association (Iata) found only 2 per cent of respondents had checked in via an SMS (text message) on their mobile phones.

But that number looks certain to rise as more airlines introduce mobile check-in - those that already have are as enthusiastic about the service as are their passengers. “To have your boarding pass on your mobile should be something that really excites the customer,” says Patrice Ouellette, Air Canada’s director of customer service platform, e-commerce.

Conveniently, Air Canada are planning to introduce SMS check-in in the not too distant future. It’s obviously not much use if you’re taking a stack of hold luggage, but if you’re just jetting off to Europe for the day or overnight on business this could really save you some time.

Link: Mobizines - Update All: Testers Required!

Refresh Mobile are looking for open and honest, London-based mobile phone users to test their new version of Mobizines and are willing to pay £10 (in either Virgin or Amazon vouchers) to anyone who is willing to help.

Anyone who wants to volunteer needs to be free to spend 45-60mins at the Refresh Mobile offices based in Fulham Broadway, London any time between Mon-Fri, 9am - 6:30pm before June 12th 2007.

Interested? Email james@refreshmobile.com for more details.

Link: webitpr | Mobile web use in the US surges ahead with three fold increase in last 12 months

Bango have just released a survey of mobile web usage, which shows the US consumers are really hammering their handsets for internet access.

Bango today published statistics which confirm that the United States is at the forefront of a mobile web growth with a three fold increase in usage over the last year. This rapid rise, taking the US to second position behind the UK, is being fuelled by the increasing popularity of mobile search as a way of finding new content and services.  

By working as a “global exchange” for the mobile web, Bango is able to provide a unique insight into where users are coming from world-wide and what handsets they are using.   The top five countries accessing the mobile web via Bango* in April 2007 were the UK at 27%, the US at 21%, South Africa at 11%, India at 9% and Indonesia at 3%.  In total, Bango detects mobile web users from over 190 countries.

Link: Reality TV Driving Premium SMS Revenues

Telephia has published a report which says that USA premium SMS revenues totaled more than US$273 million, making up 32 percent of mobile content revenue in Q1 2007.

Voting/sweepstakes entries generated more than US$35 million. While voting/sweepstakes entries generated only 13 percent of total revenues for premium SMS transactions, they represented 47 percent of premium SMS volume, equaling more than 34 million transactions.

47% of the volume is quite impressive. Hopefully the US market has learnt from the mistakes of the UK broadcasters when it comes to premium SMS and telephony.

Link: Brits Drop 850,000 Phones Down the Toilet - Each Year

If you’ve ever found yourself trying to fish your mobile out of the toilet, you’re not alone. A staggering 855,000 handsets are flushed away every year in the UK - that’s roughly £342 million we’re ‘loo’sing. Research by SimplySwitch, the price comparison and switching service, found 4.5m handsets are lost or damaged every year.