Mobile revolution continues unabated

More than half the adults in the UK now own a mobile phone, and ownership has doubled since January 1999. According to telecoms regulator Oftel, the number continues to climb, and the cost of using the services to fall.

What's more, mobile phones are spreading to almost every section of the population and every area of the country.

These results come from the latest quarterly survey into consumers' use of mobile telephony conducted for Oftel by Mori. The market researcher quizzed a representative sample of 2092 UK adults during August. For anyone planning to roll out services to mobile phone users, the results are essential reading.

There are now almost 32 million mobile subscribers in the UK, an increase of three million since the last survey in May. Some 54 per cent of adults in the UK now own a mobile phone.

The belief that mobile phones are a young person's phenomenon is still true - 75 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds have a mobile - but it shouldn't be exaggerated.

Penetration doesn't drop below 50 per cent until you get up into the over-55 age bands, and doesn't drop to negligible levels until you get to the over-75s. So pensioners carry mobile phones too.

There's a similar picture of widespread adoption when you look at mobile owners' incomes, and where they live. While ownership is highest among the high-income groups, penetration is still above 40 per cent for people living in poorer households (defined as with annual incomes below £17,500).

Using the standard marketing categories of AB, C1, C2 and so on, phone penetration is still up at 52 per cent even with the Ds (semi & unskilled manual labourers), only dropping to 31 per cent with the Es (subsistence pensioners, poorest workers and unemployed).

Indeed, mobile phones are even reaching people who don't have ordinary fixed-line phones. Six per cent of UK homes don't have a fixed phone, but Mori found that 74 per cent of these were now using a mobile instead. The reason for this is probably that you can go and buy a mobile phone in a shop and pay for the calls in advance with pre-pay vouchers. By contrast, having a fixed phone installed involves credit checks, making them unattainable for some people.

Pre-pay pricing packages such as vouchers and pre-payment by credit card or debit card directly to the network have been a major success. They are now the chosen method of payment for almost two-thirds of mobile phone customers. Spending varies quite considerably with the type of mobile package used, with those using monthly subscription packages spending twice as much as those using pre-pay.

The average monthly spending across all types of package was about £21, although the researchers note that this figure is inflated by a small number of high spenders. Two-thirds of mobile users spend less than £20 a month.

The cost of using a mobile phone is falling, according to a separate pricing study conducted for Oftel by National Economic Research Associates. For pre-pay customers, it has fallen by a third in the last 12 months, and by 12 per cent for those on monthly contracts.

"Large numbers of consumers are shopping around and changing networks to get the deal that suits their needs," said David Edmonds, Oftel's director general of telecommunications. One in five customers have switched from one mobile network to another in the past, and 16 per cent said have switched payment packages.

Vodafone is the favourite network for ordinary consumers, according to yet another study published by Fintec Communications. Vodafone has a 31 per cent market share, followed by BT Cellnet with 25 per cent, Orange with 24 per cent, and One2One with 20 per cent.