TMCnews Featured Article

How do your customers and employees communicate? While we know that communication and collaboration take place, do we know the tools that are most frequently used? An Informate Mobile Intelligence report suggests that smartphone users are increasing their communications, but they aren’t making more phone calls. Marketers hoping to reach their target audience might be better served if they understand which customers are using mobile VoIP and which customers prefer using text messaging.

According to the report, users in Turkey and the U.S. are the most engaged, while mobile VoIP and chat apps are very popular in Thailand. In terms of time invested in messaging capabilities, the U.S. is the frontrunner, with the Philippines in second place. So popular is texting that Americans would rather use this form of communication than complete a live call. The average American does answer or make six calls per day, but sends or receives as many as 32 texts and spends 14 minutes on chat and mobile VoIP.

By contrast, smartphone users in nine of the 12 countries included in the report spent the majority of their time on mobile VoIP and chat and the least amount on texting. In Thailand, users spent as much as 77 minutes per day. Still, usage of the consumer smartphone is growing. Thailand-based users spend 4.0 hours per day on their smartphones, while Americans put in 4.9 hours, up from 4.7 hours in December of 2014.

Users in the U.S. also dominated in the amount of data they are consuming at 19 GB per month. The average consumption in India sits at just 4 GB per month. In terms cellular data traffic, Indonesia takes the lead at 54 percent. The lowest cellular data traffic was recorded in Mexico and Brazil at 7 percent. The remaining traffic is sent over Wi-Fi, demonstrating opportunities for users to complete calls over mobile VoIP and lower their cost of staying connected.

The report provides insight into current usage behaviors and specific regions where certain smartphone capabilities are used above others. Understanding this information is critical if you want to reach consumers in these regions or need to decide on a communication strategy moving forward. The point is users are flocking to the capabilities they have available in ways that suit their lifestyles and preferences.

As communications continues to be a mainstay for companies everywhere, leveraging solutions that allow for multi-channel optimization, mobile VoIP and text messaging will be crucial to overall success.