A number of recent studies have pointed to mobile penetration rates of “better” than 100% in many countries in Europe and around the world. The presumption is that Canadian mobile penetration is inadequate. How come we aren’t seeing more questions on what drives these supernormal penetration rates and the resultant impact on end user costs?
Do we really believe that there isn’t a single person in Finland without a cell phone? Do we really believe that people are on the phone so much that they need a second mobile phone to avoid having callers go to voice mail when their call waiting is already… well, um… waiting?
Maybe something else is going on? Maybe there are strange distortions in rate structures that create artificial incentives to inventory SIM cards? Cheap on-net calling. Foreigners holding pay-as-you-go SIMs to avoid roaming rates?
Whatever the cause, the corollary of multiple phones per user is that the average user is paying bills for more than one phone.
I have to ask if all these comparative international cost studies are looking at end-user costs. Are the reports actually studying cost per cell phone, not cost per user?
And if the average user has 1.2 or 1.4 handsets, then isn’t the average user is paying 1.2 to 1.4 times the average cost per handset? So, in order to compare average mobile costs for users in various jurisdictions, should we actually be multiplying by the average number of phones per user first?
What would happen if the international rankings were adjusted to account for multiple bills?
Maybe 100% penetration isn’t really a worthwhile objective.
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penetration, mobile