Press Releases

Budapest, August 2, 2010

T-Mobile customers using smartphones spend more time browsing the net, sending emails, downloading applications, synchronizing tunes and photos with their PC. This is the brief summary of T-Mobile’s survey, carried out with a sample of 900 T-Mobile subscribers, analyzing the use of smartphones in more details.

In a couple of years the majority of mobile phones sold will be smartphones, inducing significant changes in usage patterns of their owners. More and more versatile mobile phones and broadband Internet are increasingly popular and the „online lifestyle” becomes everyday routine especially among young subscribers. Using smartphones and mobile Internet – in addition to accessing the net at home and the workplace – full fledged, continuous web access becomes everyday practice. In addition to voice, SMS and MMS communication, holders of smartphones can use all other means of communication – e.g. email, web services, chat – that are available through a PC either at home or at work. Mobile terminals and portable Internet devices being always at hand, they will supplement – and in time partially replace – computer based communication and sharing the experiences.

The strong growth of data traffic and sales of smart phones also underline these changes. In its representative survey – supplementing data available – T-Mobile prepared a detailed analyzed of changes flowing from the use of smartphones. Surveys revealed that smartphones are mainly used for personal communication and entertainment, rather than work or business related activities. 75 percent of those asked use smartphones for private purposes, while the remaining 25 percent use them for business – business related use is only higher among specifically business users.

The survey also reveals that customers having any type of smartphone strongly insist on their telephone and use it intensely. 61 percent of those interviewed already recommended their phone to others, while this ratio is even higher among iPhone users, reaching 74 percent.

Holders of smartphones use the net with their mobile phones significantly more, almost all of them (98 percent) also use other devices to access the web. Further to mobile web access, 31 percent access the net with PC, 29 percent with laptop and 40 percent use both alternative methods. The weight of mobile browsing also increases within the general Internet access. Holders of smartphones spend about 20 minutes on average on accessing the net with their mobile terminals each day, in case of iPhone users this goes up to 31 minutes. Most people download applications, more specifically games on their mobile phones. Almost all iPhone users (96 percent) download applications.

Emailing is also very intense among holders of smartphones. Business customers are in the lead in terms of the number of email sent per day (9-10), however private subscribers also regularly use their phones for sending emails (5-6 emails sent per day). The record is held by iPhone business customers (10-11 emails sent daily).

69 percent of those questioned synchronize their phones with the PC. This is substantially higher among iPhone users (86 percent), versus the average of 60-71 percent. In case of multimedia terminals music and photos are the most frequently synchronized content, and clearly holders of smartphones and iPhone tend to synchronize the most versatile content.

Total sample: 908 people.
People interviewed were selected randomly.
Method of data collection: telephone interview.
People interviewed were 40% female, and 60 percent male.

Within private customers the younger age group was over-represented (primarily below 24), while in case of business customers the majority was middle aged.