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Insight into Mobile Usage in the UK

A report by mobile phone operator Orange has looked into the usage patterns of its customers to provide insight into consumer habits and behaviours in the digital world.

Findings reveal that whilst the consumption of mobile data continues to increase, there are interesting differences between men and women on what they use their handsets for.

• Nearly 2 million Orange customers use social networking on their handsets, with men viewing on average 33% more pages then women
• Orange customers aged 60+ are the second largest age group to text from abroad, with women in this age group sending 48% more messages than men
• 75% of mobile videos downloaded from Orange are by men, with males also the predominant users of  Orange’s mobile internet portal

Key findings from the report include:

Mobile Social Networking
The popularity of social networking sites continues to soar, with men more likely to spend time, and view more pages, to keep up-to-date with friends’ news, status updates and pictures. As well as accounting for 64% of unique users, men also view 33% more pages than women on social networking sites overall.

The report also reveals that:

• Nearly two million Orange customers now use their handsets for social networking
• Over one billion page impressions on social networking sites are made via mobile each month

Mobile Internet
Men use their mobile phones more regularly than women to keep up-to-date with the latest sporting news. This explains why Saturday is the most popular day for customers to use the mobile internet.  Sport updates are also driving mobile internet traffic with men accounting for 57% of customers accessing Orange World.

The report aslo revealed that:

• Orange’s mobile internet portal, receives over 3.4 million users per month
• Celebrities are the most searched for term by customers

Mobile TV and Video
Sport is the main driver for mobile TV viewing and is more popular with men than women. In total, sports accounts for 50% of mobile TV content consumed, with Sky Sports 1 being the most popular mobile TV channel, attracting 24% of users.

With the increasing adoption of smartphone technology, more people than ever before are experimenting with new services. It seems that men are leading the way – accounting for 75% of mobile videos and 71% of mobile TV clips purchased. This content, usually quirky or comical and is often viewed to pass the time whilst traveling.

Mobile Gaming
Whilst mobile gaming is enjoyed by both genders, the findings reveal that men like time-related challenges such as Tetris, whereas women prefer strategic games with less time pressure such as SIMS and Monopoly.  Interestingly:

• Sunday is the most popular day for downloading games
• Orange customers downloaded nearly 650,000 games in three months

SMS / MMS and Mobile Data
With on average 63 million SMS messages sent every day – texting is still as popular as ever. The latest report reveals that women send more text and picture messages than men to keep in touch with friends and family. Also the difference between the numbers of picture messages sent between men and women increases with age – with women over 60 years old sending 48% more than men in the same age group.

The consumption of mobile data also continues to grow, with over 5.34 million customers now using Orange 3G mobile handsets and/or dongles, and over 435,000 gigabytes of data being used per month.

OTOinsights Mobile UX webinar
OTOinsights have an array of experience in the mobile and technology sector,  conducting research and developing products and online solutions for leading mobile and technology organisations.

Using our experience and knowledge we have created a study called ‘mobile insights’. Key points include:

• details of research methodologies and techniques that can be used to understand the customer’s ‘informational landscape’
• explores how to make mobile applications not only ‘usable’ but also ‘engaging’ so that your customers want to use them time and time again.

If you would like to share in this piece of research than please join us on Thursday 15^th April at either:

4pm GMT (11am EST)

7pm GMT (2pm EST)

© 2010 fhios insights.