Consumers are not ATMs.

Today, I read an interesting report that the PBC Capital Markets had a survey about American consumers who use a cell phone and other mobility devices. It showed that most interviewees had no interested in watching TV shows or listening to music on their mobile phone.

According to that survey of 1,001 Americans released today by RBC Capital Markets, there were 75% interviewees had no interested in watching TV shows on their mobile phone, and 70% ones gave an answer that they did not mind if their mobile phone did not have the function of listening music through their phone.

"With so many single purpose devices in the market, combined with evolving technology, consumers are resisting making a choice," said Scott Collins, RBC Capital Markets' director of U.S. Equity Research. "Our research shows that over time, mobility will be adopted more widely. The mobile evolution has only just begun. Compatibility and convergence will be the key influences on consumer purchases and enterprise product development as we move forward.”

More interesting thing is, in addition to the more than half of Americans that said rapidly changing technology makes them reluctant to buy new handheld technologies, 48% worried products they've recently purchased and depend on will rapidly become obsolete. 55% said too many product choices prevented them from actually making a purchase decision and Americans with a high school education or less were significantly more hesitant to buy new technologies because of their complexity than those with post-secondary education.

"Consumers are generally deterred when it comes to adopting the latest integrated mobile devices due to concerns of obsolescence," said Mark Sue, RBC Capital Markets' communications equipment analyst. "As integrated mobile devices become more complex, a significant time lag can persist before the trajectory of growth accelerates. But digital music, video, and web browsing wrapped in an iconic device, may help mobile device makers grab a greater share of an individual's disposable income previously allocated to other consumer electronics."

We can said that conclusion would be a big hit for the mobile technologies providers they promote the mobile entertainment applications energetically.

Another survey of Yankee in July 2005 showed the same conclusion as well as RBC Capital Markets'. “Most people hardly imagined to watch TV shows on their cell phone, and so many people did not use the 3G cell phone,” said Linda Barrabee, Yankee analyst.
In Taiwan, we can find the same situation the number of 3G users (actually used 3G mobile phone and not just have the 3G-sim cards) only was almost 105,000 in Dec. 2005. We can say that the cell phone user still use traditional communication style, for example, I used an old style cell phone, Nokia 8250 (at the right picture. The image in it's original context on the page: CoquesEnStock.com.), mostly to talk to my friends and less time to send message. I did not want to purchase new technologies for me it were useless.

Now, the mobile technologies providers always try to fire the desire of users for buy more tech product to arise the production. But consumers still have no image for use more have a broad gap with telephone companies in the world. It is a bell ring, I think.

The image above in it's original context on the page: Dagbladet.no.