December 8, 2004
Lifestyle 'governs mobile choice'
Faster, better or funkier hardware alone is not going to help phone firms sell more handsets, research suggests, reports the BBC.
"Youngsters' use of text messages also reflects their desire to chat and keep in contact with friends and again just lets them do it in a slightly changed way.
Ericsson's research has shown that consumers divide into different "tribes" that use phones in different ways.
Dr Michael Bjorn, senior advisor on mobile media at Ericsson's consumer and enterprise lab said groups dubbed "pioneers" and "materialists" were most interested in trying new things and were behind the start of many trends in phone use.
"For instance," he said, "older people are using SMS much more than they did five years ago."
This was because younger users, often the children of ageing mobile owners, encouraged older people to try it so they could keep in touch."
For the study, Ericsson interviewed 14,000 mobile phone owners on the ways they use their phone."
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