High-end mobile apps largely ignored, survey finds

Despite the widespread use of hand-held mobile devices and the growing popularity of high-end cell phones, higher-end applications remain largely underused in the U.S. According to an Accenture Research survey released this week, approximately 80% of U.S. consumers don’t use their mobile phones — or any portable device — to watch videos, send e-mail or play games.

The survey represented consumers from across demographic and socioeconomic strata in the U.S., where smartphones still only capture about 15% market share, said Kumu Puri, a senior executive with Accenture's electronics and high-tech practice. As such, the popular thought that print is dead, as everything is going mobile, did not necessarily apply.

“The kind of the things they did came back to were the tried-and-true applications: watching TV, even at a regularly scheduled time, e-mailing from their PC and reading print newspapers,” Puri said. “Those are the things where they seem to be spending the majority of their time. The interesting thing is there is a very clear breaker between the younger generations, Gen Y, and the older generations.”

The survey divided its 5000 respondents by age — 18 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55 and older — to identify and quantify spending patterns and usage on more than a dozen consumer electronics (CE) devices and apps, including cell phones, PCs, TVs and the Internet. Rather than the cost of the application or device, Puri attributed the lack of use to comfort, ease of usage and simply a lack of interest on the part of consumers today. There was no clear correlation with the need to pay for it, especially with the younger users. The older generation might retain most of the disposable income, but the younger generation surveyed is more apt to spend it on electronics.

The survey found that 38% of all respondents spent less than $500 on CE products during the previous year. Spending was highest among the 18-to-34 year old group, with 17% purchasing between $1500 and $3000 worth of CEs, compared to only 11% of those over 35 years old. Four times as many of the youngest respondents, 18-to-24 year olds, spent more than $3000 on CE products compared to those over 55. These young mobile users also were twice as willing as those 55 and older to pay an additional subscription fee of $1 to $5 for a Geek Squad-style service to help them install and configure their CE products over the phone. Hypothetically more price sensitive, younger respondents found being without their technology much more disconcerting than having to pay to fix it, Puri said.