Users want cellphone battery life

Johannesburg, 12 Jun 2008

Local mobile phone users are impressed by simple things - like batteries that last and handsets that are easy to use.

A recent BMI-TechKnowledge study compared a set of 13 attributes among urban consumers of varying income, age and population groups. It found that "high on the list of features for all age groups and income brackets was battery life and ease-of-use".

BMI-T says these are less glamorous features, "but are extremely important to consumers, likely born out of frustrations in the past".

Camera functionality is also rated high, especially among younger consumers, coming in third on the list among 16- to 24-year-olds, second among 25- to 34-year-olds, but dropping to fifth among consumers older than 35.

Strong competition between the handset manufacturers, along with intense marketing campaigns, appears to have caught consumers' attention, with the measure of megapixels being used as a yardstick.

The study found that having a built-in MP3 player is important to both 16- to 24-year-olds and 25- to 35-year-olds, but the importance drops dramatically in older consumers from around fifth most important to 11th.

"These consumers, who grew up in the era of LPs and tape-decks, are not interested in this type of functionality in a cellphone and look towards other aspects when considering a new handset."

The percentage of consumers who see instant messaging as important in a handset is strongly related to age, with younger consumers being far more interested in this type of functionality.

The converse is true of factors such as e-mail functionality, with its importance peaking in the 35- to 44-year-old segment.