Muse.On-The.Net

The Mobile Entertainment Forum has released a report revealing customer awareness, usage, and interest in mobile phone services. Few would be surprised to find that customers were most aware of ringtones, but it was perhaps surprising that mobile phone games ranked second, ahead of wallpapers & logos. This is both good news and bad news for the mobile phone games industry. Good news, because 97% of survey respondents were aware of mobile phone games and 23% were actively using them. Bad news, because these numbers suggest a market saturation, where 47% of people remain disinterested and 27% are fairly indifferent - has the industry peaked or are consumers waiting for better product, prices, or delivery options?

Mobile Chat - heavily promoted on carrier decks - has only a 15% active usage rate versus 57% disinterested. This suggests to me this market is dominated by highly dexterous and dedicated individuals and mass market appeal will remain in doubt until interface changes simplify the task of text input. I, for one, look forward to quality voice to text translation - a natural fit for a mobile phone!

Mobile TV is the current rage with progressive carriers, but with a 6% active usage rate and with 66% disinterest, this one requires more marketing effort. In particular, I believe until flat rate data usage charges are the norm, such services - even when promoted with distinctive data costs - will be viewed with some suspicion from the general populous. It is all too easy to misunderstand what costs will be charged to your bill and all too difficult to remove charges afterwards.

The report also makes comparisons between US and UK markets and the surprising thing is how little the differences are. The UK market remains more mature, but the gaps are shrinking. I’ve seen broader differences in reports between the UK and Germany.

The conclusions I draw are that mobile services in general are offering value to tech-savvy customers but require further work to appeal to a broader base of consumers in the marketplace. Flat rate data access plans, voice recognition commands and cleaner user-interfaces, easier access to products both on and off deck, and flexible payment features will propel mobile services forward.