To the potential delight of wireless operators, a new report from ComScore shows that a significantly higher percentage of iPhone users in the United States and United Kingdom rely on their device’s Wi-Fi capabilities than customers with Android-powered smartphones. This would be positive news as Apple’s (AAPL) iconic device has shown robust sales growth across most operators that offer the device and has traditionally boasted the highest mobile Internet usage.
Across the United States, ComScore found that 29% of iPhone users access the Internet from their device using only a cellular connection, while 68% of Android-powered devices used that same connection choice. Results from the United Kingdom found 13% of iPhone users stuck only to their cellular connection compared with 43% of Android users.
The results also showed a higher propensity of U.K. smartphone (69%) users to tap into Wi-Fi networks than their U.S. counterparts (38%). ComScore noted that in the United Kingdom, smartphone customers for Vodafone, Telefonica and Orange were more likely to use Wi-Fi than customers on other operators. In the United States, AT&T Mobility (T) customers were the most likely to use Wi-Fi due to a higher percentage of iPhone users and the carrier’s aggressive reliance on Wi-Fi offload.
“The difference in mobile and Wi-Fi network usage across the [United States] and [United Kingdom] suggests that there are a few factors at play affecting Wi-Fi utilization rates,” said Serge Matta, president of operator and mobile solutions at ComScore. “In the [United Kingdom], the scarcity of unlimited data plans and higher incidence of smartphone prepaid contracts with a pay-as-you-go data model likely contributes to data offloading among users wanting to economize their mobile usage. In addition, the current lack of high-speed data networks in the [United Kingdom] might also lead users to seek out higher bandwidth capacity on Wi-Fi networks. In the [United States], the increased availability of LTE, 4G and other high-speed data networks currently make it less necessary for smartphone users to offload, but it’s also possible that the diminishing availability of unlimited cellular data plans will eventually push more usage to Wi-Fi.”
This was highlighted by results from the United States that showed Sprint Nextel (S) with the higher percentage of cellular-only data connections at 71% of smartphone users. The carrier is currently the only nationwide operator to offer flat-rate, unlimited data access to its smartphone customers.
As for the United Kingdom, government regulator Ofcom has recently announced plans to begin looking at allowing current mobile providers to tap into their 2G and 3G spectrum holdings to offer LTE-based services. Traditionally, European countries have tied specific spectrum bands to network technologies, which resulted in the so-called “2G” and “3G” spectrum auctions. However, as plans to auction off “4G” spectrum are not expected in the near term and consumer demand for such services is spiking, Ofcom said it has released a proposal that would allow LTE services to be launched using 2G and 3G spectrum as early as this year.
Wireless carriers have been grappling for years to convince consumers to offload some of their mobile Internet usage from traditional cellular networks that are facing spectral constraints to other forms of mobile technology. Juniper Research released a report last year that predicted 63% of mobile data traffic would be offloaded to Wi-Fi and femtocells by 2015.
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