Smartphone user research1

Smartphone User Survey
Paul Hadley.
MA Social Media, Birmingham City University.
August 13th 2010.

Friday, 13 August 2010

Primary Research
Conducted in Birmingham (UK) between
19th July and 6th August 2010.
Attribution-http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/matthijs/3514892055/ under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License

Key Outcomes Sought
How popular are
smartphones?
What are business
people using them for?
How popular is video
viewing, both on
demand and
streamed?

Attribution- http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/rafeblandford/3811890074/ under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License


Context
There were 450 participants in total, all drawn from
Birmingham’s business community.
Across the survey results, all % ﬁgures have been
rounded up to the next single digit.
7 different locations in total were chosen to provide an
even spread across all industry ‘hubs’ and
geographical areas
The following questions were asked of all participants


Opening question: Are you a smartphone
user?

45% Yes (180 people in total)
55% No
(if the participant answered ‘no’ the survey was quit at
that stage)


Q1- What make and model of
smartphone are you carrying?
1) Samsung Galaxy S 22%

2) HTC Wildﬁre 18%

3) Apple iPhone 3GS 13%

4) HTC Desire 12%

5) HTC HD2 12%

6) RIM Blackberry Bold 9700 11%

7) Samsung Wave 6%

8) Nokia N95 4%

9) Sony Ericsson Vivaz 2%

10) Sony Xperia X10 Mini 1%


How do my ﬁndings compare to the global market?
1) Motorola Droid 2

2) Motorola Droid X

3) Apple iPhone 4

4) HTC Droid Incredible

5) Microsoft Kin 2

6) Microsoft Kin 1

7) Samsung Wave (S8500)

8) Samsung Galaxy (I9000)

9) HTC Evo 4G

10) Palm Pixi Plus (CDMA)
(source http://www.mobiledia.com/phones/most-popular/page1.html )


Q2- What do you use your smartphone
for? (allowing for multiple answers)
96% to send and receive text messages

93% to receive and make voice calls

82% to check, receive and send emails

77% to search or browse the internet

60% to use external applications (‘apps’)

54% to take photograph

39% to listen to music or podcasts

30% to play games

23% to access a social networking site

20% to watch a video online

14% to make a purchase online

8% to record a video

6% to view mapping services for directions

How does this compare globally (US
survey)?


Q3- Of the 20% that view video on
smartphones, via what service?

94% via YouTube
40% via Facebook
11% via Google
8% via Vimeo
4% via a live stream
3% via Viddler
NB- all participants answering this question viewed via
more than one service.

Q4- Of the 20%, have you ever recorded
video content onto your smartphone?

12% Yes
88% No


Q5- Of the 20%, have you ever published
video to the internet?

33% Yes
67% No


Q6- Of the 20%, have you ever viewed a
video stream?

33% Yes
67% No


Q7- Of those answering ‘yes’ to Q6- was
that via a computer or smartphone?

10% via smartphone
90% via computer


Q8- of those answering ‘yes’ to Q7, was
this for work or personal purposes?

100% work
33% personal
33% both


Other comments of note

20% of smartphone users also carried a ‘standard’ mobile handset for work-only
purposes, with the smartphone being a personal item rather than company issued
equipment. Restricted access to social networking platforms and viewing video
content during work time was cited as an employer-enforced restriction by these
participants

3G connectivity speed was cited as being the main restriction for not viewing video
content on smartphones

Most smartphone users stated they viewed video content via a wiﬁ network, rather
than via 3G

Apple iPhone users cited non-compatibility with Flash-based services as a barrier
to access, saying YouTube was their most frequently used video platform

Only 3 participants cited smartphone use of any Augmented Reality applications.
Two of these were Apple iPhone 3GS users, the other was a HTC Desire user.


Other relevant secondary research
evaluations
% share of internet use, global minutes (until Dec 2009)

(source Mary Meeker, Scott Devitt, Liang Wu. Morgan Stanley- http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/internet_trends042010.html )


Predicted Trends


Global influences
• 48% of all Internet users come from just five countries (Brazil, Russia, China, India and
the U.S.).
• Video accounts for 69% of mobile data traffic.
• Facebook is the single largest repository for user-generated content such as pics,
videos, links and comments.
• Apple and Android platforms are gaining in the mobile OS market, while Windows
Mobile, RIM and Palm decline.
• More and more, we are expecting to have access to our “stuff,” i.e. music, documents
and applications, in the cloud.
• The overlap between mobile users and social web users continues to grow; more and
more users are accessing the social web from a mobile device.
• If Skype were a telecommunications carrier, it would be the largest carrier in the world,
with 521 million registered users.
• Games are bigger than any other app category — both for the social web and for mobile
devices.
• Real-time technology and location-based services are expected to drive mobile retail.
• Online ad sales are growing, but virtual goods, premium content and other models are
big business, especially for the mobile web.
• The average iPhone user only spends 45% of his on-device time making voice calls.
• (source Mary Meeker, Scott Devitt, Liang Wu. Morgan Stanley- http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/internet_trends042010.html )


Contact

paulhadley1@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/hadleypaul


Smartphone user research1

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