A division, not an exclusion, of interests seems to be emerging between cellular and paging services.
Business customers are keeping the paging market in check while the cellular phone continues to be the preferred device for personal use.
These trends and others were revealed in The Strategis Group’s “CellTrac: Cellular and PCS Consumer Trends,” and “PageTrac: Consumer Trends in Paging” reports, released last Thursday.
Almost 40 percent of business users surveyed said they use their pager 81 percent to 100 percent of the time, whereas about 20 percent said they use their wireless phone for the same amount of time, according to CellTrac.
Among other things, the CellTrac report found new wireless users have an increasingly lower average income. The average household income of a user is $62,230, the average income of a new user is $52,060, and the average income of a potential user is $41,850, said the report.
CellTrac also found the average minutes of use per month decreased with age from 252 minutes in the 18 to 29 age bracket, to 104 minutes in the 55 and over bracket. For all users, safety was cited as the main reason for getting a wireless phone.
Churn is still a problem among cellular and personal communications services carriers. Approximately 36 percent of users said they intended to switch wireless providers within the next year, primarily due to price and the future possibility of number portability, according to CellTrac.
“Consumers realize that they can often get a better pricing plan with another carrier,” said Jessica Polis, analyst with The Strategis Group.
Number portability was cited as a factor because it overcomes the switching fee (incurred by the subscriber), making it more cost-efficient to switch, Polis said.
Many companies-including Bell Atlantic Mobile and AT&T Wireless Services Inc.-are combating the issue by pushing group plans that require two or more phones on the same pricing plan, consequently limiting the amount of freedom a customer has to move from carrier to carrier.
In the future, paging carriers wishing to increase their revenues will offer advanced messaging and enhanced services, said Jeffrey Chang, an analyst with the company.
“Our research shows that guaranteed messaging services alone could contribute an extra 15 percent to annual paging revenues,” said Chang.
The guaranteed messaging market has more than 10 million potential subscribers and $665 million in potential revenues, which is promising news for paging carriers since the survey also found 65 percent of paging subscribers said they were likely to discontinue use within the next three months.
The Strategis Group found 11 percent and 7 percent of those surveyed were “definitely interested” in two-way e-mail and wireless Internet access, respectively.
Elliott Hamilton, executive vice president at The Strategis Group, believes two-way e-mail in both cellular and paging devices will probably catch on more quickly than wireless Internet access in the next few years because it’s easier to perceive.
“People are looking at things like screen size and I don’t think they are really thinking about accessing the Internet over a phone. You can see better how e-mail messages can be sent and received,” Hamilton said.
The Strategis Group noted that users interested in two-way e-mail had an average monthly bill of $72, vs. $47 for uninterested users.
CellTrac is a bi-annual nationwide survey that includes the results of 695 users and 710 non-users of wireless phones. PageTrac is an annual report that surveys 310 pager users.
