Mobile Feature Gap Closes

The feature penetration gap between mobile users in the United States and Western Europe is closing, say researchers at Strategy Analytics (News - Alert). Though U.S. mobile users have lagged their counterparts in Europe in ownership of smartphones, for example, U.S. wireless customers equipped with camera-enabled devices increased by 18 percent since 2007, while those who own devices capable of video capture increased by 15 percent, for example.

 

However, as more fully-featured devices penetrate the installed base, the average frequency with which these features are used is decreasing, Strategy Analytics also reports.

 

The percentage of respondents who reported using the camera feature on their mobile device on a weekly basis has fallen by five percent in the U.S. market and 10 percent in Western Europe since 2007.

 

There are many possible explanations. In many instances, there might be a novelty factor at work. Some camera usage might be of the "look, I can take a picture" sort. Over time, such novelty use might diminish.

 

At the same time, the multiplication of discrete features means devices now might be purchased for lots of different reasons. A device with a camera might be purchased by a user who really wants mobile email, not a camera, specifically.

 

That could lead to lower use, on a percentage basis, for any single feature. In fact, a typical Pareto distribution should emerge over time, as penetration of multi-function smart devices increases. In layman's terms, 70 to 80 percent of total usage, over the entire base of users, should come from 20 to 30 percent (or even less) of total device features.

 

I'd be willing to bet that voice and text messaging will lead the usage, with several other applications getting moderate usage, and then most apps getting relatively low usage. Cameras, games, mobile email and Web searches will be in the moderate to moderately-low use category, in all likelihood. After that, you'd be hard pressed to find many apps getting even one percent point of use, across the whole base of users and application instances.