What s Important In Cell Phones to College Students? Becky Judd Ace 270 Final Project April 27, 2001
Becky Judd What s Important In Cell Phones to College Students? Introduction Just a decade or so ago cellular phones became extremely popular. Not that they haven t been around for decades previously but the legal and technology development was slow. So in the 1980 s when cellular phones became affordable and convenient people starting buying them rapidly. As a result of their popularity, today cellular phones are everywhere. As a part of this technology generation college students have taken advantages of cellular phones and incorporate them in their everyday lives. Cell phones can be seen everywhere on campus from the classrooms to the bus stations and almost everyone seems to have one. However when you think what s essential to a college student s academic career you think food, clothing, shelter and even the computer, but rarely would we consider a cell phone an essential and yet the majority of college students own one. So as a college student and a cell phone owner I began this assignment under the assumption that because most college students have cell phones but why types of services makes them so convenient and useful? My hypothesis is that students will believe price to be the largest determinate when selecting a cellular plan. Data Section I began my research by surveying twenty-six of my fellow peers with many questions ranging from what brand of service do they prescribe to the monthly price of their cell phone service. (Appendix A and B) I also including in my research visiting various cellular service websites to find what type of products they were selling and at what prices but more just to get a feel for the cell phone market. Through my research I hope to find what s important in cell phones to college students.
My first step to discovering what s important in a cell phone was to research, via websites, just what type of features cellular companies are including in their cell phone. Before visiting the websites and surveying my peers I thought that the biggest factor in choosing a cell phone would be price. In every consumer purchase, unless the consumer is extremely wealthy, the priority of purchase would be in affordability. However while visiting the websites I found that price was perhaps the hardest element to find. Most sites didn t come right out and state their prices but the visitor had to navigate through the preferred features of service and then the price would appear. The websites did offer though a host of different features for cellular phones, service range, monthly minute plans, voicemail, phone size, caller ID, web-enabled phones, online billing, headsets and cell phone cases. These features undoubtedly add up in cost on cellular phones but according my services these features were considered very important in owning a cellular phone. Discussion One of the very first questions surveyed was the brand of phone that students used or preferred. There are several brands out on the market but most students will tend to choose the phone brand that can enable the greatest amount of features and what s also considered trendy at the time. Below are my results from my survey. According to the results, Nokia seems to have most of the market share when it comes to brand of phone. After comparing their websites to other cellular phone brands it s seems to be because of their large selection of phones and accessories. The runner up to Nokia was Motorola with not even half of the percentage of Nokia.
Brand of Phone Percentage 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Prime Co. QualComm Motorola AudioVox Nokia Type of Phone Along with brand of phone, a perhaps even more important choice is the brand of service a student chooses. Of the more than 100 different service providers, my survey resulted in finding only six that applied to the student from my survey. This could be due to the fact that all those surveyed live in Illinois. Still over 60% those surveyed concluded that cellular service company is one of the greatest choices made when choosing a cell phone. However, contrary to my prior belief that most students that owned cell phones would be living in Chicago or a suburb, they students who owned phones were spread out across Illinois. Another factor that could be effecting the type of service that students use is the area to which the service covers. At least half of the students surveyed concluded that area of service range was of the greatest importance. See Appendix B. Service brand effects almost all other features and services that a college student chooses to put on his/her phone. Like in phone brand there seemed to be a definite leader in the market of cellular service companies, here Ameritech/Verizon are the leaders with forty percent of the college students service.
Distribution of Service Brands IL. Valley 10% At&T 15% Prime Co. 10% Cingular 10% Sprint 15% Verizon 40% Of those of students surveyed that do not have a phone there were two specific reasons as to why that kept repeating in the surveys. One was that cellular phones are too expensive to afford. This seems to be a very logical answer and as cellular phones continue to be affordable these types of students will be purchasing cellular phones. Or at least the Cellular Service Providers hope so. The other reason given by the students was that felt there was no need for them. Some added additional comments that they felt that cellular phones were not necessary as long as they had a home telephone. However, as cellular phones become more affordable they may someday be more economical to have then a home telephone. By in large though the surveys confirmed that the features offered to college cell phone customers seemed very important. Only two options, web-enabled phone and online billing the college students surveyed as the least of importance when choosing a phone. Although this does prove to me that college students aren t as reliant on the Internet for everything, I think this trend will change as technology changes.
Demographic factors that may be affecting the results of the survey are that there was three times as many females surveyed then males. This could have been responsible for some of the factors of selection in the survey. Another demographic factor discovered in the results was the general area of the survey. All the students surveyed were from Illinois and in general almost half of them were from the suburbs. However, this is a correct demographic for the University of Illinois because the majority of students are from the Chicago land suburbs. Conclusion Overall I think the research results were fairly strong in that they pointed out what College students believe to be important in the cellular phone market. The results were very consistent with little variance off the majority of those surveyed. However, I do think that the research could have been better if the students chosen for the survey were more of an equal demographic representation. (i.e. equal number of males and females) Also the sample of students surveyed was a small number and it s difficult to base good results from such a small sample. I would also like to have included a price analysis from the different service providers in comparison to what the students viewed as important to see what a difference features play on prices. Also, as suggested by those surveyed, there were some features that they viewed as important that I did not think of at the time like long distance and free weekend calling that I would try to incorporate into the research project. My hypothesis also proved to be right, because the most important choice when selecting a cellular phone plan for college students was price. For myself, I believe this was a good project and that any consumer who is interested in the cellular phone market
should spend some quality time researching about a phone and plan before buying, because the cellular phone market is one that changes from day to day.
Cellular Survey Age: Gender: Male or Female Hometown: Is this: (circle one) Suburb of Chicago Central IL. Southern IL. Do you own a cellular phone? Yes or No If yes, for how long? Brand of phone: (circle one) Nokia Motorola QualComm Prime Co. Other Cellular service company: (circle one) AT&T Ameritech/Verizon Sprint Cellular One Prime Co. Other Appendix A If no, any particular reason? When choosing a cellular phone and service what do you find of importance? 1 being of least importance and 5 being of great importance. 1. The brand of phone (Nokia, Motorola...) 1 2 3 4 5 2 The cellular service company (AT&T, Ameritech) 1 2 3 4 5 3. The monthly price 1 2 3 4 5 4. The area of service range 1 2 3 4 5 5. Monthly minutes of plan 1 2 3 4 5 6. Voicemail 1 2 3 4 5 7. Phone size (small vs. large) 1 2 3 4 5 8. Caller ID 1 2 3 4 5 9. Web-enabled phone 1 2 3 4 5 10. Online Billing/Payments 1 2 3 4 5 Are there any other important services that I overlooked? If so, what?
Appendix B Cellular Survey Results n=26 Age: 19ys 31% 20yrs 38% 21yrs 23% other 8% Gender: Male 27% Female 73% Hometown: Chicago 8% Sub. Of Chicago - 42% Central IL. 42% Southern IL. 8% Do you own a cellular phone? Yes 77% No 23% If yes, for how long? < 1 year 25% 1-2yrs 35% >2yrs 40% Brand of phone: Nokia 50% Motorola 20% QualComm 10% Prime Co. 10% AudioVox 10% Cellular service company: AT&T 15% Ameritech/Verizon 40% Sprint 15% Cingular 10% Prime Co.-10% Illinois Valley 10% If no, any particular reason? Expensive and No Need When choosing a cellular phone and service what do you find of importance? 1 being of least importance and 5 being of great importance. 1. The brand of phone (Nokia, Motorola...) 15% 12% 31% 31% 12% 2 The cellular service company (AT&T, Ameritech) 8% 4% 27% 27% 35% 3. The monthly price - - 12% 8% 80% 4. The area of service range 4% - 8% 35% 53% 5. Monthly minutes of plan - 8% 4% 27% 61% 6. Voicemail 8% 16% 35% 31% 10% 7. Phone size (small vs. large) 4% 12% 23% 38% 23% 8. Caller ID 15% 19% 32% 19% 15% 9. Web-enabled phone 46% 19% 19% 12% 4% 10. Online Billing/Payments 46% 31% 12% 12% - Are there any other important services that I overlooked? If so, what? Phonebook Function; Clarity of Service; Head Set; Long Distance; Free Weekends