Australia
: This report presents the results of the second edition of the Australian
Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index. The findings provide valuable
insights into the background, usage behaviour and preferences of Australian
mobile phone users.
This
research is the second survey of a longitudinal analysis of mobile
content purchase behaviour, usage and preferences. The first survey
was conducted in May 2005 and the report was delivered in August 2005.
While
many of the results may not surprise the reader, this project is the
only independent and open study of the market that has been carried
out with the support of major industry partners. The research involved
the design, implementation and analysis of an online survey, which
is considered to have been a great success as 3982 respondents completed
the survey.
Participants
• Age: Ranged from 9 to 70 years of age, average age of about
34 years, 81% under 46 years of age.
• Gender: 71% female, 29% male.
• Location: 33% from NSW, 28% from Victoria, 19% from QLD and
20% from the rest of Australia.
• Residential status: 45% single, with most living independently,
37% married and 18% in a ‘couple’ but not married.
• Income: Evenly spread, 36% earn under $400 per week, 43% earn
$400–800 per week and 23% earn more than $800 per week.
Mobile Phones
• Mobile phone ownership: Around 37% owned a mobile phone for
over seven years, while only 18% had bought one in the last three
years.
• 27% of participants noted they owned a second mobile phone,
with over half of those aged 22–40 years old and 64% of those
were female.
• Telecommunications provider: Optus (32%) and Telstra (27%)
were the dominant telecommunications providers, with even more participants
subscribers of Optus this year. Vodafone (16%) was again the third
most popular provider.
• 29% of survey respondents noted that they would prefer to
be with a different telecommunications provider.
• Bill payment: Nearly 90% paid their own mobile phone bill.
• 35% were on prepaid and 64% had a monthly bill.
• 31% were on capped plans.
• Monthly spend: 65% spend $10–50, while 21% spend $50–100.
Just over 1% of respondents spend more than $300 per month on their
mobile phone.
• Brand: Over 51% of participants currently own a Nokia mobile
phone (down on last year), followed by Motorola (12%) and Sony Ericsson
(just under 12%). Consistent with last year’s findings, females
purchased significantly more Samsung phones than males, while males
purchased more Sony Ericsson handsets than females.
Mobile
Phone Usage
• Use of mobile phone by phone bill spend: Almost all participants
(93%) identified SMS as an expenditure item, followed by MMS (20%),
buying content (12%), email (6%) and video calling (3%). This is not
to be confused with the 66% of respondents who said they purchased
content in the last 12 months. In other words, people are infrequent
buyers of content and it is only typically accounted for in the phone
bills of approximately 12% of respondents. Additional analysis carried
out to calculate the average percentage of their phone bill spent
on particular services confirmed that there are only a small number
of users who purchase a relatively high amount of content.
• SMS: Text messaging is used by most people to communicate
with close friends (90%), friends (89%) and family (86%). However,
only 62% use it to communicate with work colleagues.
AIMIA | The Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index | May 2006 page
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• Use of mobile phone by function: More than 40% of participants
said they just use their mobile to make phone calls, while 16% said
they find it useful to access information and 10% like using their
mobile to access information.
Current Content Purchasing Behaviour
• 66% of respondents purchased mobile content in the last 12
months, up from last year’s 50%.
• 59% of respondents accessed information services in the last
12 months, up from last year’s 35%.
• Similar to last year, more than 45% of participants became
aware of new mobile content via the internet, while TV decreased to
36%. In a good sign for the industry, the third most frequent method
of becoming aware of new content was on the mobile phone itself.
• 51% purchased content via the internet from a PC, 26% via
the portal and just over 10% using an SMS keyword. Entering the URL
(mobile internet) was predominantly a male behaviour.
• Nearly half the respondents purchased a ringtone in the last
12 months with the majority purchasing polyphonic ringtones. Up from
last year, 23% purchased a wallpaper, while 7% downloaded music to
their mobile phone.
• Respondents on the ‘3’ and Virgin Mobile network
purchased significantly more content than those with other telecommunications
networks.
• Females (73%) were significantly more likely than males (27%)
to download content.
• News (22%) was the most popular content purchased, up from
17% last year. Weather, in second place, increased to 18% and movie
information leaped to third position at 13%.
• A higher proportion of respondents from the 13–16 and
19–25 year old age groups purchased more content than other
age groups. Respondents under 25 years accessed more information on
mobile phones than others.
Expected
Future Usage
• The most popular requests for future mobile content were for
maps and directions (35%) again, weather (34%) and news content (32%).
There was a significant decrease in the desire for public transport
information, though it is still fairly high.
• Again, SMS (60%) was the most desired application for future
use, email (58%) came a very close second and MMS (39%) just beat
out instant messaging (38%) for third.
Take
Up and Knowledge of 3G Services
• Around 11% said they owned a 3G mobile phone, while 26% simply
didn’t know if they did or didn’t.
• Those who owned a 3G mobile phone were much more knowledgeable
about the benefits of 3G, including video calling and increased bandwidth.
Some of those who weren’t so familiar thought it was the size
of the phone’s memory, i.e. 3 gigabytes.
• There is a strong association of the ‘3’ network
with 3G and many mistake them for the same thing.
• Only 12% of respondents said they would definitely or probably
buy a 3G phone in the next six months with the main reason being that
they needed a new phone anyway and therefore may as well get a 3G
phone.
AIMIA | The Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index | May 2006 page
3
NEXT STEPS
This was the second time this survey has been conducted and the process
continues to be refined for future versions.
The
Next Survey
The intention is to conduct this survey bi-annually, producing a report
every six months. This will measure changes in behaviour and preferences,
and explore other areas of Australian mobile phone use. We expect
that the next survey and report will be completed by late December
2006.
Please
note: We present this data with our analysis, but leave the interpretation
of the reasons for these results to the reader.
VIEW
REPORT
