It is important to keep in mind that the values and preferences of consumers of even similar services will likely differ from one country to another or one region to another, and also influence their purchase of products and services. Thus, a consumer in Milan might differ from a consumer in Sicily. One consumer might value rugged utility and efficiency; another consumer might prefer a product associated with a particular brand or designer. These are potentially purely cultural differences – it doesn’t make one superior to the other it simply reflects a different valuation.
Although a greater percentage of European users send text and photo-messages than U.S. consumers, the reverse is true when it comes to ringtones. Moreover, increasing familiarity with the capabilities of wireless devices is one reason why Sharma thinks that there is a “tremendous uplift” in wireless data going on in the U.S., and that wireless data revenues are “growing quite rapidly – even probably at a higher rate than Europeans are experiencing.”
Sharma also points out that the U.S. enjoys “a long history of strong enterprise focus and deployment,” with the result that “carriers in Japan and in Europe . . . look to the U.S. to figure out what the trends are in enterprise mobility,” since from “the applications perspective, those markets have not been that mature.”
As the European Commission says in its Twelfth Report on the European Electronic Communications market, data services other than SMS “still account for only a small percentage of total revenue, [though] non-SMS services such as access to internet via mobile devices and music downloads might in future become the primary driver for additional growth.” This is not to criticize providers of wireless data in Europe, it simply recognizes that the primary use of wireless communications devices remains communication often in the form of voice and text messaging. Other applications in the U.S. and around the world are still growing, while voice is a common and mature application.
Devices and Choices
As Agarwal notes, “The way in which consumer demand engages with the mobile supply is different in different geographies.” Consumers in many countries first shop for a handset and then for service, while in the U.S. it has generally been the other way around. Consumers in the U.S. can choose to purchase handsets directly from service providers or from third-party retailers, although most choose to purchase discounted handsets directly from carriers. While the store-front display of devices emphasizes the wide variety of handsets available to consumers, a review of wireless service providers’ and third-party retailers’ websites recently indicated that the number of handsets available in the U.S. is three or more times the number available in other countries, such as the UK.
M:Metrics – which conducts an on-going survey of thousands of wireless customers in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the U.S. – recently reported finding that users of the mobile web in Europe and the U.S. showed pretty consistent interests in the nature of their browsing. The exception is a greater interest in sports among European women, while American women appear to be more interested in accessing weather-related information via wireless.