The rapid growth in SMS use has now reached levels where 81% of UK adults with mobiles (or 32 million individuals) have sent or received an SMS in the last three months. Enpocket, a leader in mobile marketing solutions, offers these findings via its research division, Enpocket Insight. This study, the Mobile Media Monitor (MMM), gives marketers, media owners and network operators quarterly insight into the changing patterns of mobile media consumption around the world. In addition to charting trends, the MMM reveals the consumer emotions and motivations behind consumption patterns.
The chart below shows the breakdown by age – over 9 out of 10 mobile owners in the 18-44 year age bracket are using text and even within the 55-64 age range almost two thirds of mobile phone users are using SMS.
The rise of new services is also charted, with 9% having sent an MMS or photo message and 13% having used WAP to access the mobile internet. Less than 1% of respondents have used a 3G service.
Downloads to the mobile phone show an evolving picture as users are attracted to newer applications:
9% having acquired a mono ring tone over the last three months
6% having downloaded a polyphonic ring tone or colour image/icon
3% have downloaded a Java game or application
The Mobile Media Monitor will continue to track these fast growing activities to measure both market size and the profile of consumers attracted to each service.
Looking at mobile marketing, the survey shows that nearly half (45%) of owners have received an SMS or MMS marketing message in the last three months, while one in seven (14%) have texted in to an SMS call-to-action in other media or on product packaging. Interestingly, this is heavily biased towards the 18-44 age groups, where 1 in 5 use their mobile to interact with brands.
The following chart shows the gender split of uses of a variety of mobile phone based services. For the communication functions the breakdown is roughly 50/50 male/female, although WAP and MMS, with lower incidence, have a slight male bias.
Those texting into TV shows are evenly distributed between the sexes, although texting to a number on product packing has a higher female bias (59%).
Some of the more advanced phone function have a much stronger male skew such as downloading Java games (67%) taking photos (61%) and using Bluetooth (86%).
Rob Lawson, of Enpocket Insight, commented on the launch of the Mobile Media Monitor: ‘Use of mobile media is developing in different patterns in different markets, from Asia to Europe and the Americas. By illuminating these, the Mobile Media Monitor is designed to help mobile operators, media owners and marketers maximise returns by bringing the right services to market at the right time and promoting them to the right groups of consumers.’
Phase 1 of the Mobile Media Monitor (UK) survey was based on 1,000 telephone interviews undertaken by ICM for Enpocket Insight in October, and relates to the period August-October 2003. The base was representative of UK mobile phone usage.
The Mobile Media Monitor is a quarterly international study to monitor the changing consumption of mobile media. For more information about subscription to the survey, please contact mmm@enpocket.com.
