Cheaper telephone services

A new study found that across the globe, "people shopping for mobile telephone services don't want expensive features, and low-cost providers are stepping in to get a sizable chunk of this growing market."

This trend is starting to become more prevalent amongst younger consumers. Basically, those users don't want to have a large variety of products and services, such as access to news and weather bulletins that are included by default in some standard contracts. They want basic services, that work.

McKinsey, who did the related study, interviewed 1,000 German mobile phone users to gauge the importance they attach to the services and applications that wireless companies typically offer. "Our analysis shows that a third of the market has limited interest in advanced features or personal interaction with mobile operators: these customers are content to make simple phone calls (and perhaps to use SMS) and would be happy to stick with handsets they already own or to pay for new ones."

Does this show once again that companies pack features into something that is not necessarily wanted, sell it as value-added and than wonder, why the uptake of their service is slow sluggish? When do companies realise that the experiments with high-end value added services, such as television over mobile phones might not necessarily be the expected killer application, and that users basically want a mobile service that works.

(Asia Business Consulting)