Nearly eight out of ten US mobile content users have difficulty trying to access content due to slow page loads, phone/interface issues, and irrelevant content, according to a recent study conducted by TNS Global on behalf of Xiam Technologies. Moreover, mobile users report that 27% of the time, they are unsuccessful in finding what they are looking for.
Among US consumers who cite difficulty in accessing content:
- 61% say content is slow to load or hard to find due to the need to click through too many pages.
- 58% say they experience phone/interface issues.
- 15% say too much irrelevant content is a problem.
Users Rely on Search to Discover Content
Overall, 68% of mobile Web users prefer search engines to access mobile Web content, followed by 58% who prefer to enter URLs directly. Providers' content stores/portals are used less often than other methods (41%) to obtain content and are generally used more among paid downloaders and higher spenders, the study finds.
Opportunities in Personalized Content Discovery
If personalized content were easier to find, 61% of US consumers say they would spend more time or money accessing it. More significantly, 66% of downloaders and 76% of users who access content through their provider's store/portal say they would increase both time and money spent if personalized content were easier to find.
In addition, if relevant content were easier to find, US consumers say they would spend over $9 more per month on content purchased via mobile phone, increasing monthly spending from the current $5.30 to $16.10. They also indicate a willingness to spend more than an hour more of time per week accessing content.
Other Key Findings
- 90% of mobile content users download content. Applications are the most popular category of downloads (73%), followed by ringtones (57%) and video (57%).
- 40% of users have paid to download content in the previous six months.
- The top 5 visited sites by mobile content users are Google, Yahoo, a wireless service provider, weather.com, and Facebook.
- The most popular content accessed is weather, followed by maps, social networking sites, games, and news/sports.
- Users tend to access the same categories of content repeatedly rather than branching out to new categories/applications; they are, however, open to recommendations within categories.
About the data: The study was conducted by TNS Global on behalf of Xiam Technologies, a Qualcomm company, in August 2009.
