The economic downturn will have a disruptive effect on the mobile content and services market in the UK, as consumers limit their monthly spend to voice and messaging services. Thats the conclusion of the latest research data from mobile research and analyst, Direct2Mobile.
In its monthly consumer survey, conducted by Lightspeed Research, Direct2 Mobile asked a representative sample of 1,000 UK consumers about their changing spending attitudes and habits on mobile. While 53% of respondents said that the worsening economic climate will have no affect on their mobile phone spending behaviour, over 7% of consumers have stopped, or intend to stop, their spend on content and services until brighter economic conditions emerge. That represents 3.96 million users and almost 50% of the existing mobile content and service user base.
Additionally, around one-fifth of respondents (17.8% of men and 16.3% of women), amounting to almost 10 million users, said that they will not subscribe to mobile content and service subscriptions, such as mobile Internet access, Mobile TV and mobile music services, until the economic environment changes. While 53% of respondents said that the worsening economic climate will have no affect on their mobile phone spending behaviour.
The glass is half full for the mobile operators and half empty for the mobile content and service industry, says Direct2 Mobile Chief Researcher, Nick Lane. Over 50% of mobile users are unaffected by the recession and a sizable chunk of mobile data users reverting to talk-and-text only usage will protect mobile operator revenues during this period of financial hardship.
As almost half the advanced data users are reverting to talk-and-text only usage, the mobile entertainment companies should remain vigilant for the foreseeable future. And with 20% of the UKs mobile population unlikely to subscribe to mobile data subscription services during the recession, it threatens to seriously impact on growth in the mobile content and services sector.
According to Direct2 Mobile, the UK mobile entertainment market was worth approximately 505.8 million in 2008. The company had previously forecast that the UK mobile entertainment market would be worth 973 million by 2013, but says that this latest consumer research casts serious doubt over that growth.
The complete survey results and analysis are featured in the latest issue of mobileSQUARED, a new monthly analysis bulletin focussed specifically on the mobile content and services market, available for download here.