Influx

For all the talk of our mobile future and analysts hyping things like mobile wallets, there seems to be little evidence to suggest that we want to use our phones for anything more than voice and text.

Given that the survival and profitability of wireless carriers depends on their ability to be able to sell consumers on new services partly because the threat of VOIP looms large, the migration to added value services seems to be their only solution.

Recent data from Mmetrics

Purchased ringtone-10%
Used picture messaging-9%
Used personal email-7%
Downloaded mobile game-3%

Source:mmeterics-percentage of US mobile subscribers using service

This shows the carriers have some ways to go to achieve their goals and that more communication is required to get consumers into the habit of using multiple services.

As Influx has mentioned repeatedly, retail has to be the place where existing customers could be cross-sold and new customers educated. However, this still remains an underexploited opportunity.

marketing