Forget call drops: its video quality that mobile users want

Poor mobile broadband experience is the biggest dissatisfaction driver globally, and smartphone users facing 11 or more issues a week are likely to switch operators, warns Sweden's Ericsson in its latest ConsumerLab study.

Video streaming-related glitches are a potent turn-off, says the report, adding that in growth markets like India and Brazil, mobile broadband experience is twice as important in driving smartphone customer loyalty as voice.

Better mobile broadband experience remains the principal driver of smartphone user loyalty to telcos, says the report Ericsson.

Mobile broadband experience is based on smartphone user satisfaction with many aspects such as web page and video load time to buffering effects on streaming apps, as well as network coverage. 

In high growth markets such as India and Brazil, mobile broadband experience is twice as important in driving smartphone user loyalty compared to voice experience. ''This is because users of smartphone and mobile broadband in these markets are younger and care less about voice call usage compared to mobile data,'' the report added.

The views are representative of 650 million smartphone users across 14 markets including India, Brazil, China, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Oman, Poland, Russia, Sweden, South Korea, Ukraine, the US, and the UK.

According to Ericsson, addressing mobile broadband experience has twice the impact on customer loyalty compared to improving initial purchase experience. It is also approximately three times more effective than increasing satisfaction with pricing and offerings.

The report shows that smartphone users who face 11 or more issues per week are approximately twice as likely to think of switching operators. Alarmingly, two in every five smartphone users claim they face 11 issues weekly, with video streaming glitches more common now.

Smartphone users apply their own set of criteria to judge mobile broadband experience, based on how apps are performing – in particular whether video apps stream without interruption, or how fast users can upload content to share on the social networks.

Millennial smartphone users (those aged 18-24 years) overwhelmingly prefer to find out from operators how their favourite social media and video streaming apps perform on the network rather than the extent and reach of network coverage, the study shows.

Although mobile broadband experience emerged as the principal driver of loyalty, it is also the top source of dissatisfaction for four of the six smartphone user profiles identified (73 per cent of smartphone users globally).

The report said while mobile broadband networks have improved with time, apps have also evolved, incorporating new features such as video, which increases the demands on network performance.

''As new apps will continue to emerge and usage behaviour will evolve, network performance will matter more than ever and will decide how loyal smartphone users will be towards their operators in the future,'' it added.

For all the improvements in mobile networks since 2013, the number of smartphone users facing issues daily has not changed, the report noted.