9% of respondents to a MCA survey on mobile phone usage said that they have more than one mobile connection.
According to the survey, 87% of (residential) respondents said they have a mobile phone. Of the remaining respondents without a mobile connection 12% said they have no intention of getting one in the future, while 1% said they were considering getting a mobile connection by the end of the year.
34% said their subscription formed part of a bundle, up from 7% in a similar survey two years ago.
The survey found that 79% of subscribers had a prepaid connection while the remaining 20% were on a contract basis.
Prepaid subscribers were found to be generally more aware of their monthly mobile phones expenditure – only 13% did not know how much they spend as opposed to 19% of postpaid subscribers. The results also showed that 38% of postpaid subscribers spend more than €30 a month on mobile services, while the majority of prepaid subscribers fall in the lower spending brackets.
91% of those respondents who travelled abroad during 2010 claimed to have used their mobile phone while being abroad, of whom 17% only sent an SMS, 15% only used their mobile to make calls while the remaining 59% used their mobile connection to both make calls and send text messages.
In terms of quality satisfaction levels, the survey showed that more than 88% of respondents with a mobile connection were satisfied or highly satisfied with the level of service provided by their operator. Nonetheless 21% changed operators during the last two years.
The reasons for switching operators were various, but the most salient motives remained the bundle offers and the attractive cheaper (special) rates offered from time to time. Respondents said that it was relatively easy to change mobile operators with only 8% encountering difficulties, the majority of which were related to delays in number porting.
Of the respondents with a mobile connection, 16% had a Smart Phone and were thus able to access internet via their mobile phone. Of those with a Smart Phone, 44% said they access the internet on their mobile phone on a daily basis, 6% do so 2-3 times a week while 11% make use of their mobile phone internet once a week. More than half of the respondents use the internet on their mobile to read e-mails, 20% for social networking, 16% for general browsing, while 10% and 2% access the internet via their mobile phone to browse news related items and youtube respectively.
www.mca.org.mt.