Submitted by Mike Grenville on Wed, 08 Feb 2006 11:34

A study by M:Metrics of owners of 3G phones in the UK and Germany has found that although unsurprisingly they consume more mobile multimedia, they also send significantly more SMS than 2G phone owners, in spite of a higher use of mobile IM as well.

Although 3G users account for a low percentage of mobile phones users overall, 3G users in the U.K. or Germany are as much as five times more likely to use the multimedia capabilities of handsets, with increased levels of messaging, and gaming, watching video and downloading new content for personalisation of handsets. With 7.7 percent of its mobile users subscribing to 3G services, the U.K. tops Germany and the USA at 3.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.

The Changing Landscape of 3G

A higher propensity to consume of video is a distinguishing feature of 3G networks. Approximately 404,000 and 107,000 subscribers to 3G networks viewed short video clips on their handsets on a monthly basis during the fourth quarter of 2005 in the UK and German markets respectively. Thus 3G users in the UK are 9 times more likely to view video on handsets compared with owners of 2G devices and German 3G users are 13 times more likely to view video than counterpart subscribers on prior generation networks.

More SMS On 3G

Higher consumption of data services is also reflected in proportionately higher propensity to download ring-tones and games. Survey data from the fourth quarter show that 3G subscribers are about twice as likely to download a ring-tone and between three and four times more likely to download a game.

Now Mobile Is An Industry!

Hervé Le Jouan, Managing Director, M:Metrics said that the company’s European subsidiary has launched because, “European mobile and media firms have been starving for a measurement standard for mobile content consumption,” . “The market has reached a point to where an understanding of the audience for mobile content is absolutely necessary for mobile to evolve as a viable media channel. To be a grown up industry it needs bench marks and industry measurements" said Le Jouan.

"The industry needs to move to be more customer orientatated" said Le Jouan. "When operators talk about technology to customers they are not interested. There is a shift but it will take some time to really talk about services." Le Jouan compared the current situation to the early days of the internet. "There was lots of talk about the technology but now broadband is there it is much more about the servies available".

Goode explained that the company has developed a device database that tracks all the available handsets in the market and their capabilities. "This is vital to perform the online surveys with about 5,000 people in UK and another 5,000 in Germany" said Goode. "Across Europe it will be about 20-25,000 people per month with a different sample of people each time".