How do UK and US mobile consumers stack up?

On either side of the pond, cell phone consumers have taken different approaches to shopping in the market.

Variations in pricing, contract lengths, and even geography have caused contrasts in the way cellphones are purchased, but smartphones like the iPhone have challenged the norm for users looking for money. a new mobile.

Carolina Milanesi, vice president of mobile device research at Gartner, said that a wider range of UK vendor grants allowed consumers to choose devices with the features they want and then pick that device from the vendor offering the best deal, unlike the United States.

“In the United States, it was always about the provider and the data and voice plan that best suited your needs,” said Milanesi. IT PRO. “Then you would get any phone the provider would put on that package.”

This is evident in the different ways that mobile websites display their content. The UK site Know Your Mobile displays handsets in advance, while its US sister site Know Your Cell lists operators and then introduces the products to consumers.

Ian Fogg, Senior Analyst at Forrester, geographic scale was the only significant difference between the UK and US, impacting the level of coverage that mobile phone users rely on, a question that remains. a challenge for the United States.

Contract lengths also vary between the two countries, with two-thirds of UK consumers using prepaid phones and the majority of US mobile consumers with long-term contracts.

Different technology

The market differences are also a result of the diversity of technologies used by UK and US suppliers, according to Fogg.

UK mobile users find it much easier to switch SIM cards between phones than in the US, as UK operators essentially use the same technology on the same frequencies, he added.

“Any phone can work on any network, unless it has been locked to a network, but that lock can be overridden very easily,” Fogg said. IT PRO. “This means that if consumers want to switch networks, it is relatively easy for them to do so.”

However, US companies have a mix of technologies, with AT&T and T-Mobile using SIM cards with CDMA technology similar to UK carriers and Sprint and Verizon using GSM.

iPhone in the market

This is why Apple’s iPhone is currently exclusive to AT&T in the United States, as Apple is expected to make a separate handset for companies like Verizon or Sprint, Fogg added.

As for the iPhone, Fogg said it has a major impact on UK and US carriers, pushing them to look at how they price data, avoid congestion and manage their mobile networks.

“The iPhone is actually, in fact, more of a unifying force in terms of the experience of carriers on either side of the Atlantic,” he said. “The experience is more similar than different.”

Major iPhone carriers in the US, AT&T, and in the UK, O2, have both reported network quality congestion issues.

The future of subsidization

For the United States, subsidy levels have historically been lower than in Europe, but with the shift to high-end devices, the subsidy level has moved closer to the European model.

Milanesi said it would be interesting to see changes in subsidy levels in Europe, like what has been seen with the iPad. In this case, the non-subsidized hardware was sold at a fairly high cost, but consumers still bought it because there was no two-year contract or high monthly plan attached.

She said that when operators in other countries reduced the level of subsidies, sales fell in the short term, but then picked up and sales returned to normal.

“This would allow carriers to lower their costs and could be a more accurate indicator of who consumers are actually looking for in terms of the brand and who they like, rather than unnecessarily choosing a brand that gets the highest subsidy from the carrier.” , Added Milanesi.

Mobile phone innovation

Rob Bamforth, senior communications analyst at Quocirca, said the market is moving not only towards devices, but also towards applications.

“After all, most people are talking about having an Android device, not a Samsung Android device,” Bamforth said. IT PRO. “It’s because it’s an application platform.”

He said market players are trying to capture and understand the mobile app market and development stores.

This could eventually weaken the carrier and the brand of the device, he added.

“Despite the strength of brands, I think people are generally looking to devices,” Bamforth added. “The iPhone reinforces that and the countermarketing of other manufacturers reinforces it as well.”

Fogg said, particularly in the area of ​​smartphones and the arrival of mobile Internet, North American companies RIM with the BlackBerry, Google with Android and Apple with the iPhone have been the most innovative.

“These three companies have really led the smartphone market over the past two or three years,” he said.

European handset makers like Nokia and the Symbian smartphone platform have been in the background, battling the new wave of innovation coming from North America, he added.

As for the iPhone, Milanesi said the difference that’s happening in the UK, US and beyond is that it has garnered attention to user interfaces and intuitiveness.

“This is what Apple has done to the industry, fundamentally moving away from focusing on just hardware functionality and looking at the overall experience that a high-end device should be able to provide,” Milanesi concluded.