Critical Path finds 94% of consumers in emerging markets want a more “social” address book experience

Monday, 15 February 2010 10:15

Critical Path finds 94% of consumers in emerging markets want a more “social” address book experience

Critical Path meets the digital disconnect with Social Address Book solution

Press Release-Consumer Research MWC.pdf

Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain – 15 February, 2010 – Research results announced today by Critical Path, a leading provider of messaging applications, reveal consumers in emerging markets are dissatisfied with their social networking experience, in line with their Western European neighbours (Source: Critical Path research October 2009). Nine out of ten respondents access social networks on a weekly basis, yet approximately two thirds struggle with out of date contact information.

Critical Path surveyed seven countries to gauge the social networking habits of consumers in Latin America, AsiaPac and Northern Europe as part of a continuing series of global consumer research initiatives. Almost half (46%) of the respondents are dissatisfied with their devices’ facility to share contact information, with only 36% of respondents always updating changes to contact information across each of their social address books. Most (57%) consumers are frustrated with the process of informing people about a change in their contact details. While approximately two thirds find integrating other people’s changes into their various address books even more frustrating.

Out of the 3,500 respondents surveyed:

• 94% would like to be able to automatically update all of their contacts with new contact information
• 96% would like the option to back up and restore address book information
• 95% want choice over the types of updates  they receive from social networking sites
• 49% of consumers would be willing to pay for a service that updates and manages contacts and social networks in one place

“Our latest research shows social networks are becoming increasingly important in consumers’ daily online interactions”, says Mark Palomba, CEO Critical Path. “While user preferences vary from region to region, there is a clear demand for an intuitive solution that unifies fragmented contact information across social networks. Operators are ideally positioned to help ease these frustrations, particularly as mobile devices become more sophisticated.  Critical Path developed Social Address Book in response to this growing demand. We understand consumer’s usability and security concerns and are delighted to be working with leading operators to deploy new services over a variety of devices.”

Country specific statistics:

Latin America

• 81% of respondents from Brazil would pay €2 per month for a service which allowed them to update and manage all of their contacts and social networking updates
• 94% of respondents from Brazil would like to use a service which allows them to receive updates from all social networking sites in one place
• 94% of respondents from Argentina would like a service to protects their address book information by backing up all the data so it can be restored quickly and easily to the mobile

AsiaPac

• 83% of respondents from China find out of date contact information frustrating
• 75% of respondents from China said they would be willing pay for a service that allowed them to update and manage all of their contacts and social networking updates
• Indian respondents are split on willingness to pay, with 33% preferring a one-time fee of €5 and a per sync fee of €0.5
• While 44% of respondents from India would prefer to pay €2 per month for unlimited synchronisation
• Facebook dominates the social networking space in Hong Kong with 97% of respondents stating they use it;  100% of respondents in Hong Kong in the age group of 18-24 use Facebook; over 45% use 5 or more social networks

Northern Europe

• Only 26% of respondents from the Czech Republic always update contact information across each of their social address books
• 81% of respondents from Poland place affordability as a high priority when looking at features of a possible service

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About the research

The research was carried out online by Vanson Bourne during December 2009 amongst a nationally representative sample of 3,500 consumers across Latin America, AsiaPac and Northern Europe, aged 16+. The consumers were from seven countries: Brazil, Argentina, China, Hong Kong, India, Poland and Czech Republic.

About Critical Path, Inc.

Critical Path’s Memova® suite of applications and services are chosen by leading service providers and enterprises around the world to enable millions of people to communicate, connect, share and organize while providing industry-leading safety and assurance.

With offices around the globe, Critical Path supports companies with their deployments of Memova solutions to drive revenue, boost loyalty, streamline operations and reduce costs. More information is available at www.criticalpath.net.

Note to Editors: Critical Path, the Critical Path logo, Messages that Matter, The World is Mobile, AppLink, ShoZu, the ShoZu logo, Memova and the Memova logo are the trademarks of Critical Path, Inc., registered in various jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Critical Path, Inc.

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Annette Leach

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