The UK’s mobile content and services market could be in for tough times if research from mobile research and analyst house Direct2 Mobile bears out.
Its survey found that over 7 per cent of consumers have stopped, or intend to stop, their spend on content and services until better economic conditions emerge.
D2M said that figure represents 3.96 million users – or almost 50 per cent of the existing mobile content and service user base.
Nearly a fifth of respondents (17.8 per cent of men / 16.3 per cent of women) – or around 10 million users – said they will not subscribe to mobile content and service subscriptions, such as mobile Internet access, mobile TV and mobile music services, until the economic environment changes.
Nick Lane, chief researcher at D2M, said the glass is half full for the mobile operators and half empty for the mobile content and service industry.
"As almost half the advanced data users are reverting to talk-and-text only usage, the mobile entertainment companies should remain vigilant for the foreseeable future," he said.
"And with 20 per cent of the UK’s mobile population unlikely to subscribe to mobile data subscription services during the recession, it threatens to seriously impact on growth in the mobile content and services sector."
The UK mobile entertainment market was worth approximately UKP£505.8 million in 2008, according to D2M.
The survey, conducted by Lightspeed Research, asked a representative sample of 1,000 UK consumers about their changing spending attitudes and habits on mobile.
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