Prospective mobile Internet phone purchasers show a strong interest in buying portal-branded handsets from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, according to the “Mobile Market View” study from The Kelsey Group.
Of the 500 mobile consumers surveyed, 25% said they would buy an Apple-branded handset while 22% said they would buy a Microsoft/MSN-branded handset. 20% indicated they would but a Google-branded handset; 18%, a Yahoo-branded handset; and 10%, an AOL branded-handset. That compares with 38% of consumers who would buy a handset branded by mobile phone carrier Verizon and 36% who would buy an AT&T-branded handset.
“The gap between the carriers (Verizon and AT&T) and the Internet and technology companies was much smaller than expected, suggesting potentially wide acceptance of portal-branded phones, should they come to market,” says Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director, Interactive Local Media, The Kelsey Group. “It makes sense that features that are typically associated with the Internet and technology companies are of high importance to consumer for their mobile devices.”
Survey respondents also ranked the importance of six mobile Internet capabilities. Better connectivity to other devices (54%) and improved ability to store and look at photos (51%) received the highest ratings, followed by the ability to access the Internet more easily (45%), listen to music or other audio content (34%), play games (25%) and watch TV or Internet videos (20%).
“Mobile Market View” is a tracking study of mobile user behavior conducted by The Kelsey Group and research partner ConState. The first wave of the study was conducted in September 2007 via an online 30-question survey of 500 U.S. mobile phone users aged 18 and over.
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