Comments on: Has Europe fallen out of love with the mobile phone? http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/ Wed, 22 May 2013 22:56:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Daniel http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-856576 Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:40:08 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-856576 1- waiting for Iphone 5
2- we hate our operators: Apple help us!

]]> By: Bobbie Johnson http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-856406 Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:25:17 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-856406 A great point, made by a few people. It’s something I hear a lot more of in southern Europe than in the north.

]]> By: Richard Bennett http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855796 Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:52:53 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855796 Europe is waiting for 4G. We have it in the U. S., but the GSM technology mandate in Europe is a roadblock, as is their mandatory wholesaling of E1 backhaul. They’re going to fall behind the U. S. until they reform their regulatory structure.

]]> By: Dave Mackey http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855713 Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:58:35 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855713 Maybe Europe is just hitting a market saturation point?

]]> By: Nazir Kaker http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855609 Sat, 23 Jun 2012 11:12:51 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855609 One additional point I would make Bobbie is that although phone ownership maybe going down revenue from handsets I would believe is increasing. I have two lines and pay around £120 a month basic rental, partially to get my phones free (Bold 9790 & iPhone 4S) and partially to as I am a heavy user. That in the past would be an unheard of monthly cost but with data bundles and more minutes, and 3G to 4G (LTE) ‘average cost per contract’ is probably becoming more important than actual amount of contracts to the providers…?

]]> By: Pablo http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855398 Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:51:24 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855398 We have OVER-PRODUCTION! One line in factory can produce phones for all the world. The same is in ALL branches! When we start taxing manufacturing ( I mean machines) and give people jobs? …. This masonry world had to end! Give 90% tax for rich ones that buy yahts and third (empty) flat….

]]> By: Pat http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855343 Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:57:29 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855343 More than 100% penetration means that people own more than one phone, or sim card. They did this in order to get cheaper call rates. This is all over the world, not only in Europe. Now, with competition heating up, they can afford to own only one phone and sim, and with the use of NOIP, still reduce further their phone bills. The use of smart phones and VOIP has drastically reduced calling expenses.

]]> By: Javier F. Escribano http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855276 Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:34:36 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855276 Hi Bobbie,

As a Spaniard, some reasons of these changes as I have analyze them for my business (founder of TouristEye travel app).

- There was a penetration of 118%, so there were too many mobile lines.
- Because of the crisis many companies are removing lines to employees. There were many people with company and personal phones (the reason of he extra 18%).
- About 2 years ago MVNOs started to get traction, they offered way lower call prices (like 1-3 cents per minute). They needed time before people could rely on them and see them as an reliable option. Now it’s the time, specially when you can go from a 60€ bill to a 15€ bill.
- In all the world more people are buying unlocked phones. I believe 90% of people with unlocked phones have MVNOs in Spain.
- Tuenti (the biggest social network in Spain) has a MVNO too, thousands of teenagers are changing to them so they have integrated their messages and chat. Yes, that’s what Facebook would love to do ;)

- And an important problem for Apple is that with those changes, in the last 3 months, 90% of new smartphones are Android. Just 5% are iPhone. Some months ago, the numbers were like 40% – 40%. And that’s a real problem for Apple and a really interesting fact for developers who target Spain.

My two cents :)

regards

]]> By: sumisukyo http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855256 Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:42:01 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855256 I also believe this is largely due to iPhones(in my experience anyway) they are cheap affordable and quite often come with amazing deals to both the contract itself and also extras such as consoles, in my family there are 3 iPads 2 iPhones, not to even mention my reletives. These “smartphones” adaptability is amazing and when a newer version comes out there are so many people looking to get one it’s easy to sell and buy the new the new one that reaching out to”old” hardware is exactly that, looking around the restaurant now I see iPhones blackberrys and htc’s even many of my collage friends who often cannot afford their daily cigarettes own smartphones on contact, and are definatly not looking at changing them anytime soon.

]]> By: Bobbie Johnson http://gigaom.com/2012/06/22/has-europe-fallen-out-of-love-with-the-mobile-phone/#comment-855235 Fri, 22 Jun 2012 12:36:58 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=534978#comment-855235 And I wasn’t saying your suggestions were wrong either — just bouncing them back. This is a fascinating and bafflingly complicated topic :)

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