Is Mobile Substitution at a Tipping Point?
Something interesting might be happening in the mobile-only household segment.
Though wireless-only households, especially households including only a single resident or multiple young adults, have been increasing for some years, there now is some indication that mobile-only usage is higher in the general population than it is among more technologically-savvy Internet users.
If that trend holds up, it indicates that cutting the landline now has reached a possible tipping point. In the first six months of 2007, 13.6 percent of households did not have a traditional landline telephone, but did have at least one wireless telephone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Now here’s the other bit of interesting data: The Harris Poll, which surveyed Internet users only, found that 11 percent of those respondents were mobile-only. Going only slightly out on a limb, let’s assume Internet users are more open to new technology-use behaviors.
That isn’t to make more of the data than is warranted. Indeed, the Harris Poll shows that in addition to the 11 percent of Internet users who use mobiles exclusively, another two percent of Internet users only have VoIP services, and do not use mobile or landline phones. Another five percent say they use mobiles and VoIP.
Adding the “mobile only” users with the “mobile and VoIP” users means 16 percent of users do not use a landline. Add the two percent who use only VoIP and one is left with 18 percent of Internet users who do not have a landline. So it still appears that Internet users are “different” from the general population.
That is as many of us would expect. Still, it is startling that “wireless only” usage defined as “wireless only” seems to be higher in the general population than among the arguably more-advanced Internet users.
Overall, the percentage of adults living in wireless-only households has been steadily increasing since 2005. In the first six months of 2007, one out of every eight adults lived in wireless-only households. One year before that just one in 10 adults did.
What we should be watching for now is some broadening of wireless-only behavior beyond younger users.
Up to this point, mobile-only consumers have tended to consist of younger users. More than three out of 10 users ages 25 to 29 now depend solely on wireless handsets. Nearly the same percentage of 18-year-old to 24-year-olds are mobile-only.
The issue now is whether there is some greater willingness to do so among the ranks of consumers in other demographics. Still, in the 30-to-44 age bracket, nearly 13 percent already are wireless only. Among users 45-to-64, about seven percent are wireless only.
Even among users 65 or older, about two percent use mobiles exclusively. IP
