Mobile Report: Young People Love Mobile Phones, But Aren't Loyal To Network Providers

Young people in the United Kingdom love their mobile phones but they don't care who provides them, according to a recently released report.

"Youth love of mobiles is surpassed only by their indifference to the networks which run them," researchers stated in Mobile Youth '06, an annual study from Wireless World Forum.

The report, which examined trends in 59 countries before focusing on people under 24 years old in London, found that young people don't display brand loyalty when it comes to their cell phones, although they're loyal when it comes to other products.

Mobile operators suffer more customer turnover than any other industry in the United Kingdom, according to the study. Wireless World Forum analyst Savka Andic suggests that providers can learn something about loyalty from brands such as Nike and Red Bull.

"By learning from popular non-mobile brands, operators can get closer to young consumers, and this will help them in the long run to produce mobile services youth will love," Andic said in a statement released by Wireless World Forum.The report also states that mobile companies must move beyond adding MP3 playback capability to handsets. They need to provide users with the ability to easily explore, capture, display, and share their music.

"It's a social thing," Wireless World Forum analyst Jan Kuczynski said in a statement. "In the past, teenagers have made compilation tapes for their friends and swapped CDs. Music services can use mobile, too, and if implemented correctly, sharing can be an effective marketing tool."

But mobile companies and advertisers should keep in mind that today's young people are deluged with marketing messages, according to the report.

"We are now in a transitional period where traditional marketing techniques aimed at increasing the reach of a marketing message are becoming less effective, but marketers have yet to develop effective strategies and metrics to move to a new marketing paradigm focused on relevance," the report states.

Mobile phones offer marketers opportunities for personal, highly-targeted campaigns, which should give young people value in exchange for their attention, Wireless World Forum analyst Nick Wright said in a statement.Prices for the complete report begin at $4,790.