Survey Finds Majority Unhappy with Mobile Social Networking Services

Nine out of ten respondents to a survey access social networks via their mobile phone on a weekly basis, yet approximately two thirds struggle with out of date contact information. Almost half (46%) of the respondents are dissatisfied with their devices' facility to share contact information, with only 36% of respondents always updating changes to contact information across each of their social address books. Most (57%) consumers are frustrated with the process of informing people about a change in their contact details. While approximately two thirds find integrating other people's changes into their various address books even more frustrating.

Critical Path - who sell messaging platforms - surveyed seven countries to gauge the social networking habits of consumers in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Northern Europe.

In addition to the obvious results, the survey also found that just under half of consumers would be willing to pay for a service that updates and manages contacts and social networks in one place.

"Our latest research shows social networks are becoming increasingly important in consumers' daily online interactions", says Mark Palomba, CEO Critical Path. "While user preferences vary from region to region, there is a clear demand for an intuitive solution that unifies fragmented contact information across social networks. Operators are ideally positioned to help ease these frustrations, particularly as mobile devices become more sophisticated. Critical Path developed Social Address Book in response to this growing demand. We understand consumer's usability and security concerns and are delighted to be working with leading operators to deploy new services over a variety of devices."

Latin America

* 81% of respondents from Brazil would pay €2 per month for a service which allowed them to update and manage all of their contacts and social networking updates
* 94% of respondents from Brazil would like to use a service which allows them to receive updates from all social networking sites in one place
* 94% of respondents from Argentina would like a service to protects their address book information by backing up all the data so it can be restored quickly and easily to the mobile

Asia Pacific

* 75% of respondents from China said they would be willing pay for a service that allowed them to update and manage all of their contacts and social networking updates
* Indian respondents are split on willingness to pay, with 33% preferring a one-time fee of €5 and a per sync fee of €0.5
* While 44% of respondents from India would prefer to pay €2 per month for unlimited synchronisation
* Over 45% of Hong Kong respondants use 5 or more social networks

Northern Europe

* Only 26% of respondents from the Czech Republic always update contact information across each of their social address books
* 81% of respondents from Poland place affordability as a high priority when looking at features of a possible service

Methodology

The research was carried out online by Vanson Bourne during December 2009 amongst a nationally representative sample of 3,500 consumers aged 16+. The consumers were from seven countries: Brazil, Argentina, China, Hong Kong, India, Poland and Czech Republic.