Only 18% mobile users backup – CelleBrite boss

Remmy Nweke in Spain

The co-chief executive officer of Isreali cell phone synchronization and management systems solution provider, CelleBrite, Mr.Yossi Carmil, has said that 18 per cent of mobile users globally back up their phone data.

Speaking at the on going 2010 Mobile World Congress in He Barcelona Spain, Mr. Carmil cited a recent research by his firm, stressing that several mobile phone service operators are missing out on this opportunity as users have expressed their readiness to pay for back-up service.

He noted that the research conducted in the United Kingdom with about 1,000 mobile users, showed that mobile retailers and device manufacturers are missing an important opportunity to increase user loyalty and revenue as well as the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) by their inability to effectively market a mobile data back-up solution to users at the point of sale.

As said by him, the research revealed that 18 per cent of users back up their mobile data in spite of the fact that 47 per cent had already lost a mobile phone. The research also revealed that 47 per cent of users were unaware of services offered by network operators in store to back-up and synchronize mobile data and 48 per cent of those expressed willingness to pay somewhere between £5 and £20 extra and wait up to 10 minutes to receive such a service.

Another significant finding, he said, was that only a minority of users about 16 per cent change handsets more than once a year.

“25 per cent of respondents admitted that the difficulty in transferring mobile data dissuades them from upgrading to a new phone. The survey also revealed that 27 per cent of users would change handsets more regularly if they could transfer their mobile content onto the new phone at the point of sale,” he disclosed.

Carmil pointed out that the 47 per cent who had hitherto lost phones admitted that recompiling the lost contacts and mobile data such as photos, music, text messages and videos could take up to six months and 24 per cent admitted that they never manage to fully recapture the lost data.

“Lost contact information will negatively impact on mobile usage and so indirectly affect not only the users, but also the operators themselves. Operators and device manufacturers need to grasp the mettle and educate and encourage users to back-up their data by offering it as a type of mobile data insurance policy as part of their customer insurance package offered at the point of sale,” he said.

Further, he said the research found out that contacts and content are equally important to users.

Some variations exist in terms of gender and age regarding the relative importance of content versus contacts: with 44 per cent of respondents claiming that contacts were more important than mobile content and 38 per cent rating content more important than contacts. Women were more likely to favour mobile content (47 per cent) like photos, videos and music over content (39 per cent) and men more likely to value contacts (48 per cent) over content (30 per cent).


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