LONDON—A new report stated the number of contract mobile subscribers has increased in the United Kingdom for the first time since 1999. J.D. Power and Associates said the number of new users choosing to pay on a monthly basis increased from 12 percent in 2001 to 24 percent in 2002, while the total share of prepaid users in the country decreased to 65 percent from 71 percent in 2001.
The overall share of contract users is up to 35 percent in 2002 from 29 percent in 2001.
“This move toward monthly payments should help to increase revenue for the phone companies, because contract customers tend, on average, to make much greater use of their services,” said Gunda Lapski, director of European telecommunications and utilities services at J.D. Power and Associates.
An additional trend is that fewer U.K. mobile users are switching to other operators. Prepaid customers who switched providers during the last 12 months decreased nearly 50 percent—from 13 percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2002.
Orange remained the highest-ranked service in the United Kingdom in terms of customer satisfaction. The study examined nearly 40 different components used in evaluating overall customer satisfaction among the four U.K. mobile providers that service more than 40 million customers.
Overall customer service calls decreased to 37 percent in 2002 from 40 percent in 2001 for prepaid users and to 54 percent from 63 percent for contract customers.
The survey is based on detailed interviews with 2,095 households representing a cross section of the U.K. mobile market between February and March 2002.
