25% of Finns Already Use Their Mobiles for Surfing the Internet
Mobile Media Tracking, a survey conducted by Satama and published in January 2007, is a comprehensive review of the role that mobile telephones and other mobile devices have taken as channels for marketing and providing services and of the progress of media convergence in Finland. The survey was commissioned by the Finnish Direct Marketing Association (Finnish DMA).
According to the survey, mobile phone use continued to diversify further in 2006. The use of MMS messaging grew from 29 percent to 41 percent. Twenty-five percent of respondents had accessed websites with their mobile phones and 31 percent had used their mobiles to react to programmes or advertising on TV or radio. Last year, the percentage was 26.
Text message based marketing, which has grown steadily since 2001, seems to have stabilised at the level of 2005. In 2006, 45% of the population had received marketing communications to a mobile device. In certain target groups this percentage was almost 60.
The age group that used mobile telephones in the most versatile manner was that of 24 to 35-year-olds of whom a staggering 61% had received marketing communications to their mobile telephone. Thirty-eight percent of people in this age group had used a mobile device to react to marketing communications published in other media, and 47% had used their mobile phone to access the Internet.
The findings of the survey were targeted at enterprises that wish to have access to the most up-to-date information on consumer behaviour in digital channels; what kind of content is suitable for a mobile channel and what kind of content the users find interesting. The findings indicate not only that mobile channels have developed as a form of media and a marketing tool but also that everyday mobile phone use has diversified further amongst Finnish people. Over 1,500 Finns aged between 15 and 64 took part in the survey.
Mobile Media Tracking 2007 is the seventh survey of its kind. Heimo Consulting was in charge of the previous surveys, including last year’s, but a business acquisition last summer led to Satama Interactive having now taken over the process. In addition to research, Satama excels in other areas in this field: its Mobility unit employs around 80 experts who design and implement mobile services and applications and deal with mobile multimedia.
The members of Finnish Direct Marketing Association can purchase the survey for the fare of 150 euros and for non-members the fare is 250 euros. Orders and detailed information on the survey: Teemu Ylikoski, Marketing and Research Manager, Finnish Direct Marketing Associationtel. +358 (0)40 5600 884, teemu@ssml.fi
For more information, please contact:
Tuukka Ylälahti, Research Consultant, Analytics, Satama Interactive
tel. +358 (0)400 410 315, tuukka.ylalahti@satama.com
Teemu Ylikoski, Marketing and Research Manager, Finnish Direct Marketing Association
tel. +358 (0)40 5600 884, teemu@ssml.fi
Finnish Direct Marketing Association, Finnish DMA
represents around 230 organisations from the fields of mail order sales, client management, interactive marketing, direct marketing and direct sales. The Finnish DMA’s mission is to make the ever-changing multi-channelled business environment of its members as favourable as possible. The association was founded in 1974 and its members’ joint turnover in 2006 was over 34 billion euros. www.ssml.fi
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January 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
According to this research http://www.ssml.fi/Mobiililla_tilaaminen_nuorten_suosiossa_11_06.pdf, only 157 000 Finns have ever ordered something (ringtones, images, etc.) via text message. And now, just in two months leap, 1.25 million Finns are surfing Internet with their mobile phones? Quite fast evolution.
Also I think that “25% of Finns Already Use…” is wrongly said because 25% have ever accesed Internet with their phones. This doesn’t mean that they actively are browsing the net. Usually people just try browsing internet with their new high-tech toy, get very frustrated because it’s slow, and never try that again. I guess this is counted as “Surfing the Internet”.
January 28th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
The question, in my humble opinion, is always: what can we do with this information?
and indeed, as the previous comment mentions, does this article really mean what it’s saying? The title seems slightly misleading, in my eyes. Am I the only one?
Of the data I’ve seen using WebTrends measuring for certain large companies in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK, I would support the previous statement: penetration is very low. I would stake at less than 5% but it certainly depends upon the audience of the website so take this figure with a confidence interval, weighed for your sector, if you would be so kind.
Let’s face it, I recently wanted to show something from my blog on my Blackberry. It took ages to upload! So, unless you upload while you speak, I really don’t see the use of getting all excited about surfing on mobile phones because it’s still at pure gadget level, in my humble opinion.
On the other hand, you might note that making your website mobile surfing compatible is not really that complicated of what I gather.
But, hey, I’m not the technician. Only the data analyst educating my clients into using data in order to support their communicational and strategical choices.
If adding a tag to your website in order to make it mobile surfing compatible, what budget is your company willing to spend, in exchange for possible gains?
Such an assessment would certainly depend according to your content management system (if you’re using templates, one might consider a couple of hours) used, your capacity on adapting it and what mobile visitors could mean to your business.
Difficult to say and worth thinking about, in my humble opinion.
In any case, if it’s not for today, we know that surfing on different devices will be part of our reality at some time, don’t we?
Bonsoir from Brussels,
Aurélie Pols
January 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Mobile Media Tracking 2007 (MMT-07) indicates that 25% of the respondents have used their mobile phone for browsing. The result contains both the www and www -page browsing and is thus higher than one reported by, for example the latest TNS-Gallup NetTrack from January, which indicates that 13% Finns have used their mobile phones for www -browsing. Furthermore, MMT-07 results are based on what the respondents report themselves and it does not measure whether the use of the mobile for browsing is active and continuous, or limited to simply attempting to browse one or two times.
Concluding anything on the activity level of browsing based only on this one report is impossible and we fully realised this when reporting our findings. The provocative headline is based on tracking of the trend for longer period of time. In the last year’s study, when wap and www browsing was asked separately, 21% of respondents indicated having used their phone for wap browsing and 15% for www browsing. Given that in this year’s study 25% of respondents reply that they “Have used their mobile phone to visit a web site (wap or www)”, it seems likely there exists continuation in the usage –especially when 46% of 20-24 year olds, and 42% 25-34 year olds, indicate having done so.
It would be an exaggeration to claim that 1.2 million Finns are heavy surfers of the web using mobile terminals. However, there certainly seems to be evidence that the habit of mobile browsing has already gained a foothold in Finland and it seems to be increasing to significant levels, especially among the active phone users (20-34 year olds).
I would very much like to open up discussion on the scope of the phenomenon, but it seems that data simply isn’t readily available to make conclusion to one way or another. It would certainly be interesting to compare our figures on those the operators gather, but unfortunately, this is not public information. Exactly here lies the problem of measurement of mobile phones as media: The research data is fragmented to wide area consisting of various data gathering methods and un-uniformed figures. Should there one day be uniformed system and methodology to track the development of mobility as a media, I would be among the first to applaud.
Regardless if the browsing currently is heavy or inconsistent, the phenomena itself cannot be disputed: Significant amount of people have devices capable of browsing and they are trying out different services, ranging from TV & Radio programming sites optimised for web browsing on 2nd generation phones, to viewing full blown web sites such as Google, Flickr and Wikipedia on their latest mobile browsers.
What it all means to marketers and service designers is an entirely different question. While it is obvious that the surfing experience on a mobile phone is not as user friendly as surfing with a PC is, in some cases it is sufficient to get info on the go, if you have no other choice. The arrival of 3G phones in larger numbers and the capabilities of the latest mobile browsers are apparently already showing in the figures and their impact in near future should not be underestimated.
With all this said, it is my opinion that it’s a high time to start thinking about the possibilities of optimising your existing Web services for user friendly mobile phone browsing, and then measuring its use continuously and systematically with tools such as WebTrends, to find out what sort of content is really in demand by mobile surfers. In Satama we are already doing this and helping our clients to do better business in the converging digital environment.
Regards,
Tuukka Ylälahti
Consultant
Business Area Mobility
SATAMA
Ps. check out these sites if you don’t believe mobile surfing is possible without a headache and plenty of swearing. Just type the following addresses on your services browser. No http, www, or www prefixes needed:
s60.com
mobile.burton.com
mobiili.finnmatkat.fi
mobiili.nelonen.fi