Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:34

44% of UK mobile phone users who used a mobile data service for the first time during the 2006 Football World Cup will not use it again according to an NOP survey commissioned by Olista. Pricing, ease of set up and use were identified as the key barriers to mobile data uptake.

According to the survey of 999 adults carried out during the final weekend of the competition, an encouraging 29% of world cup mobile data users have used a service for the first time but worryingly for operators 44% claimed they would not use the service again.

Pricing was a big issue with only 49% of consumers satisfied with the cost of the mobile data service they used. On top of this 19% believe that if mobile data services were easier to set up and use they would have been encouraged to use the services on offer during 2006 football world cup.

The survey also asked the question, if the ease of access and quality of service was not a problem which mobile data services would potential users have considered using. Of the services on offer during the 2006 tournament, text alerts (22%), video clips (16%) and picture messages (16%) were the most appealing to users.

Only 11% of potential mobile data users would have been interested in mobile TV. This is disappointing reading for mobile operators and content providers, who were banking on the tournament to bring mobile TV to the forefront of data service offerings. However those with tickets and widespread availability of large TV screens coupled with pricing concerns may partly explain this,

Oren Glanz, CEO of Olista says, “The survey illustrates that operators are succeeding in getting consumers interested in mobile data services with an encouraging amount of first time users attempting to use a services during the 2006 tournament. The disappointing part of this survey is that after interest has been achieved the customer is often left disappointed and does not become a repeat customer” states Glanz. “Operators need to anticipate, detect and resolve potential user problems to ensure users enjoy a flawless first time experience every time or they can forget about repeat customers”.

If you want to read a litany of first hand problems from a range of other mobile companies, then follow the discussion on Russell Buckley's MobHappy blog called 'What a waste'. Having found that 75% never respond to a WAP Push after having sent an inbound text message, Buckley started to look into what the reasons could be for such a poor response rate. The response was a long list of serious problems from experienced users and companies in the mobile content business.

In spite of all the hype and talk, one starts to ask the question as to whether mobile operators really are serious about mobile content. An industry that is so focussed on the technology needs a wake up call to become a customer focussed industry.

See also this article by Marek Pawlowski, Editorial Director at PMN who discusses this and another report on the World Cup User Experience: Net negative - the mobile World Cup experience