Mobile Data Plans Most Vulnerable to Financial Hardships
According to a recent study conducted by Strategy Analytics, mobile data plans are the most vulnerable to being dropped by U.S. consumers, while home broadband subscriptions are the most guarded.
The survey of 1,110 household decision makers posed this question: “Imagine that, due to household budgetary constraints, you have to reduce home entertainment /communications services expenses. How would this affect your spending on:”
Forty-eight percent said they would drop their mobile data plans completely, while 17 percent said they would scale their plan back to a lower tier and 33 percent said they would leave their plans unchanged.
Only 10 percent of respondents said they would drop their broadband Internet connections completely, while 21 percent said they would scale it back and 67 percent said they would leave it unchanged.
“Given the extraordinary importance consumers place on home broadband, we fully expected broadband to have a high ‘keep rate,’” said Ben Piper, director of multiplay market dynamics service.
Piper noted that the vulnerability of mobile service was surprising.
Twenty-one percent of respondents said they would drop their fixed voice plans completely, while 22 percent said they would scale it back and 56 percent said they would leave it unchanged.
Meanwhile, 19 percent of respondents said they would drop their mobile voice plans completely, while 28 percent said they would scale them back and 51 percent said they would leave them unchanged.
Twelve percent said they would drop their digital television subscriptions completely, while 41 percent said they would scale them back and 45 percent said they would leave them unchanged.
“These results suggest that, while American consumers consider home broadband service to be a vital utility, they see mobile data service as simply a ‘nice to have,’” said David Mercer, vice president of digital consumer practice.
Source:
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=PressReleaseViewer&a0=4751
