Mobile Content Services Face an Age Gap

05/05/2004

According to a report conducted by NOP World for Nokia, mobile phone users say they would pay 28% more than their current mobile fees for mobile content services.

Looking specifically at age groups, the study found that younger respondents are willing to pay Î10 more for mobile content services, but older respondents are not willing to pay as much. One factor for this age gap might be the greater familiarity younger users have with similar technology such as the Internet. Older users might be less interested in spending money on the services if they are not as used to related services available online. Additionally, older users need more education to use mobile services, dissuading them from wanting to pay more for the products or even understanding the value of such products.

However, there was little difference between the sexes in terms of their willingness to pay more for mobile content. Furthermore, both males and females showed similar interest in downloading various types of mobile content, with a gender gap existing only for sports content.

NOP World surveyed people in North America, Europe and Asia who are mobile phone users and have access to the Internet. The aim of the study was to determine the type of mobile content people prefer, whether they would like it to be delivered through downloading, streaming or browsing and how much they are will to pay for such services. NOP found that people prefer content that is useful when they are “out and about,” that the delivery method depends on the type of content (for games, downloading was preferred, while streaming and browsing is preferred for services that update frequently, like news) and that younger people are more willing to pay higher prices for mobile content than their elders.

Downloading ring tones proved to be the most popular use of mobile content services among respondents, with downloading icons or screensavers the second most popular use by a significant percentage.

Source of Article: eMarketer

Date of Article: May 3, 2004