English newspaper The Guardian published the results of a couple of recent surveys on mobile content, including the quarterly “Orange Digital Media Index” and a study carried out by TNS and, alas, no real surprises here:
- Ringtone and wallpaper downloads are slowing and are on the decline and, frankly, who in their right mind with a phone that plays MP3s, has a good camera as well as multiple connections to a computer, would spend money on such little gimmicks anymore? Ringtones were down more than 10%, whilst wallpapers still grew but at a meager 3%.
- Full-track downloads of songs though were on the rise — 292,000 in January on Orange UK compared to only 100,000 ringtones.
- SMS are going strong (up 21% or 1.3bn for the month in the UK) according to Orange, a number to which I, through my 12-year-old son’s phone bill, contribute no small share…
- TNS believes mobile IM is on the rise but this is not really the big thing. What IS the big thing is that, according to TNS, more than 1 in every 3 messages a user sends from either his/her mobile OR computer are SMS (38%), and that shows how ubiquitous the whole thing has become. Again, judging by my son’s communication patterns, I believe that: his choice of messaging is – in order of relevance: 1) SMS, 2) IM, 3) (and I mean a very, very distant 3) e-mail.
So pretty much all as expected. Unfortunately, no news on mobile video, games or applications in this one although this is there might actually have been interesting things to report. I am actually wondering now why I even bothered recording this at all… Apologies…
