In this post, I synthesize the research data related to US and sometimes worldwide mobile Internet, "wired" Internet and smartphone users, to depict a profile of US mobile Internet users. Using the underlying factors and data about mobile Internet and mobile phone market in Vietnam, the second part of the post will project characteristics of Vietnamese mobile Internet users.
Now, let's start with US mobile Internet user profile:
- Gender: more male than female
- Income: widely distributed (high income is not a differentiating factor)
- Lifestyle: more active people, less heavy internet users
- Content consumed: News and social network
- Phone: Still many "dummy" phone and increasingly smartphones; large and extra large screens; and mainly with iPhoneOS, Android and Symbian OS
Gender: more male than female
According to The Nielsen Company, worldwide mobile Internet users are slightly more likely male than female. The male bias of mobile Internet use is consistent across markets and is most pronounced in European markets. In Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well, males are more likely than females to browse the mobile Internet.
This gender bias, can be explained by:
- (Nielsen) Gender bias of traditional "wired" Internet users
- (My explanation) Higher ratio of public-transported commuting males explains the higher difference in European countries, where public transportation is very popular (my interpretation)
- (My explanation) More mobile Internet contents geared toward male than female, e.g. news, sports, tech, traditionally. Increasing popularity of social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, where there are more female than male, probably is the main driver of a 9% higher growth rate (between 2008 - 2009) of female vs. male mobile Internet users.
Income: high income is not a differentiating factor
Also, according to Nielsen (2008), the US mobile Internet audience is not, as some expect, overly concentrated in high-income households:
- 24% of all mobile Internet users have household incomes of $100,000 or more
- 26% of all mobile Internet users have a household income of under $50,000
This I think is caused mainly by low barrier of entry. US mobile providers' flat-rate mobile data programs with affordable price. These programs often also bundle voice, which make them more attractive even to medium-end phone users.
Lifestyle: more active people, less heavy internet users
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported the results of the first study of its cross-media panel of PC and mobile Internet users in the U.S., finding that light PC Internet users are 30 percent more likely than heavy PC Internet users to use their mobile devices to access Internet content.
Partially due to nature of these people, partially due to services also target these people
Age: Widely distributed
Comparing concentration of mobile Internet and "wired" Internet users for different age groups (I excluded 2-11 age group, who in most case don't use mobile Internet, and recalculated proportionally) , we can see:
- Higher concentration of mobile Internet users users in age group of 18-34
- No clear difference in age groups of 13-24 and 35-54
- Lower concentration of mobile Internet users in age group of 55 up
In my opinion, this is caused by a combination of:
- Active/mobile lifestyle, as well as faster technology adoption of young generations
- Ability to afford mobile data plans
Lifestyle: more active people, less heavy Internet users
comScore, Inc. (2009) reported the results of the first study of its cross-media panel of PC and mobile Internet users in the U.S., finding that light PC Internet users are 30% more likely than heavy PC Internet users to use their mobile devices to access Internet content. Explanation is two fold:
- Light Internet users often lead a more active lifestyle that their peers, thus has more tendency to use mobile Internet
- Mobile Internet's differentiation from its "wired" peer is time-sensitive and location-sensitive services (see below), which more suitable for active lifestyle, as well.
Content consumed: News and social network
Surveying activities of its US customers, comScore (2009) reported the most accessed contents on mobile Internet is time-sensitive and location-sensitive contents, with increasing popularity of social network. The most popular sites continue to be in the news and information category, which groups news, weather, maps, and other information sources. Social network grew 427% in the period from January 2009 to January 2009.
| Fastest Growing U.S. Mobile Web Content Categories, January 2008 and January 2009 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Daily Unique Users, January 2008 (000) | Daily Unique Users, January 2009 (000) | Change (%) | |||
| Accessed any news and information | 10,821 | 22,369 | 107 | |||
| Accessed social networking site or blog | 1,761 | 9,278 | 427 | |||
| Traded stocks or accessed financial account | 1,135 | 3,274 | 188 | |||
| Accessed movie information | 1,077 | 3,072 | 185 | |||
| Accessed business directories | 939 | 2,447 | 161 | |||
| Accessed entertainment news | 2,104 | 5,470 | 160 | |||
| Note: Figures are a three-month average ending January 2008 and January 2009. | ||||||
Source: comScore, 2009 | ||||||
Mobile technology used: A combination of WiFi, SMS, 2.5G and 3G
Though 2.5G (GPRS) and 3G are discussed a lot these days, according to mobile ad firm AdMob,
in September 2009 42% of requests in the US were made from Wi-Fi
capable devices. 18% of actual US requests were made over a Wi-Fi
connection in September 2009 compared to only 5% in September 2008.
In addition, comScore (2009) noted that while 22.3 million US users accessed news and information services through a downloadable application, 32.4 million used SMS/MMS.
Phone: Still many "dummy" phone and increasingly smartphones; large and extra large screens; and mainly with iPhoneOS, Android and Symbian OS
While smart phones are indeed getting more popular, comScore (2009) found that 70% of worldwide (more skewed toward high-income, high-mobile-penetration countries, though) users who accessed mobile Internet sources did so on standard feature phones. However, one should note that US market is quite behind in terms of smartphones in comparison with their European and Asian peers. However, given consumer users are now the key driver of smartphone adoption, the growth of the segment will accelerate in the future.
According to AdMob (2009), in terms of share of smartphone data request,
Finally, AdMob also noted large- and extra-large- screen-size mobile phone accounts for 65% of its users worldwide. This is a very important enabling factor for the growth of mobile Internet usage.
THE NEXT POST: VIETNAMESE MOBILE INTERNET PROFILE
To make it more readable, I will move the projection of Vietnamese mobile Internet user profile to the next post. Again, it will be a combination of my interpretation of research data and projection from US mobile Internet profile. Come back for more, soon...
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