Less traffic per user, says comScore analyst, but much wider adoption
The mid to low tier was the fastest growing smartphone sector in 2009 in Europe, according to stats just released from comScore. comScore found that the fastest growth for smartphone adoption was for tariffs below €50 in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, and £35 in the UK.
Although adoption of high-end tariffs also showed good growth in the UK (60%) and France (43%), across the board it was the mid to low tier segment that topped the charts, with adoption of sub-€50 contracts growing 52% in France, about 40% in Germany and Spain and 14% in Italy.
That means that although operators are seeing a widening smartphone user base, they will not necessarily see the same lift in data loads – and with it the same data-profit gap – that they have seen with high end smartphones.
Despite recent offers for the iPhone at lower monthly tariffs, Alistair Hill, senior mobile analyst at comScore, said that tariffs at that range tended also to come with mid to low tier devices, typically Symbian devices or perhaps Android, although Android still has a very low market penetration overall.
“We are seeing that people who pay less on a monthly basis are also less intensive data users,” Hill said. “Yes, they are using smartphones and data services but these types of devices are not quite iPhones. They tend to be Symbian based devices that are not quite as smart as the iPhone.”
To support that, Hill said that 20% of users in the mid-low tier use their devices for data every day, against 32% of high end users.
82% of all users pay less than £35 a month, Hill added, so addressing that market with smartphone devices that drive mobile media use will be critical for operators.