Jan
3
We have completed our first survey of the year on mobile e-mail for personal use (as opposed to corporate solutions) and found that Blackberry devices from Research In Motion (RIMM) are the most recommended devices while Gmail from Google (GOOG) was the most often recommended e-mail solution, primarily because the solution is free to the user with a wireless data plan.We surveyed North American and European wireless carrier stores. We asked if mobile e-mail was an option, how much it costs and which device the respondent would recommend for e-mail users. our survey respondents are skewed towards North America where 90% of our responses came from while 10% come from Western Europe. In North America our break-down between the big four carriers (Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile) is close to even.
Almost every wireless carrier representative said that e-mail was growing in terms of consumer interest and demand. Most phones seem to be web capable and by extension capable of receiving mobile e-mail from a variety of e-mail solutions including HotMail, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Google and corporate solutions using Microsoft Outlook.
The best devices to buy to optimize the mobile e-mail experience according to our survey respondents were the following:
Blackberry devices (Generally, no specific models were mentioned) from Research In Motion - 28%
Motorola Q - 16%
Palm Treo 700p - 8%
Cingular 8525 - 8%
Sprint PPC-6700 - 8%
LG Chocolate - 4%
LG Envy - 4%
Not mentioned widely in our survey but apparently selling very well is the Sidekick 3 from Danger that is sold exclusively through T-Mobile. Some T-Mobile respondents reported that this phone was out of stock and was the most popular for consumers looking to use e-mail and text messaging.
Mobile e-mail appears to be growing and the need for a data plan to access e-mail (even if it is a free service like gmail) bodes well for wireless carriers and their propspects for increasing data usage on cell phones.
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