Three million Australian smartphone users over the age of 14 (19 per cent) often go over their monthly mobile data limit, new research from Roy Morgan has shown.
Younger Australians were more likely to exceed their data limits, with one-third of those aged 14-24, and 29 per cent of those aged 25-34 finding that they often exceed their limits. This tendency to go over the limit drops sharply among smartphone users aged 35-49 (15 per cent) and continues to decline with each following age bracket.
The research said that this was likely due to the way in which smartphone users were using their device. Younger smartphone users (aged 14-34) are more than eight times more likely than their 50-plus counterparts to be streaming video or music on their smartphones. While three-in-five Australians aged 50 or over now use a smartphone, only 55 per cent of them use the devices for any internet activities in an average four weeks.
“Now that four-in-five Australians have a smartphone, there’s few new market entrants left to win,” Roy Morgan Research CEO Michele Levine said. “Customer satisfaction, reasons for choosing and switching, and mobile service usage habits and data allowance needs are the issues that the providers need to monitor consistently and understand in-depth if they want to win, keep and upsell customers.”
