Nielsen to Measure The Mobile Media Consumer

More than 33 Million Persons Used Mobile Web and 8 Million Persons Viewed Mobile Video in the Past 30 Days

New York – June 6, 2007 –The Nielsen Company today announced that it will begin measuring mobile phone users through a new service called Nielsen Wireless.  This service will measure how many people use content services such as mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this has on established media behavior. 

Nielsen Wireless is led by Nielsen Vice President Jeff Herrmann, who also leads Nielsen Games, Nielsen’s video game measurement service.  Nielsen Wireless is designed specifically for the wireless industry and also complements Nielsen’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which will measure television usage on all television and video platforms, including personal video devices such as mobile phones.  Nielsen already supports the wireless industry through customer segmentation, ringtone sales tracking (Nielsen RingScan), attitudinal and behavioral surveys and mobile polling.  Nielsen Wireless will work in tandem with these existing Nielsen services.

Nielsen Wireless’ first product – Mobile Vector – will launch in the U.S. in July 2007.  It will use information culled from Nielsen’s existing National People Meter TV sample to report on media behavior and audience demographics segmented by wireless carrier. This will:

• Help wireless carriers develop more efficient advertising campaigns to reach their most valuable subscribers, while helping mobile content producers decide which mobile content distributor will be most effective in extending their brand.

• Help the mobile media industry establish competitive positioning and differentiation.

• Identify how the subscribers of different wireless carriers consume media in the home (i.e. TV viewing preferences, video gaming activity, media technology adoption).   

“The value of an entertainment medium is directly proportional to how well it is measured,” said Herrmann. “Reliable and accurate measurement of mobile consumers will enable advertisers to properly evaluate the mobile marketing opportunity. This new mobile measurement service demonstrates Nielsen’s continued commitment to follow content wherever consumers take it. Independent measurement of the cross-media behavior of the growing mobile audience will support and accelerate the evolution of mobile media business models.”

“Understanding the consumer value proposition of mobile marketing can only come from understanding user behavior,” said Courtney Jane Acuff, director of denuo, a Publicis Group Company.  “The announcement of Nielsen's Mobile Vector now gives brands and agencies insights that were previously unavailable. Education is so critical to the overall success of this new medium and having trusted syndicated research resources to better educate and ultimately inform the planning of new media initiatives is crucial to success and longevity.”

Later this year, Nielsen will expand Nielsen Mobile Vector to include a survey of mobile phone users that will provide information about their consumption of mobile media content. Through continued collaboration with wireless industry stakeholders, Nielsen’s ultimate goal is to develop a system that will support a market-wide view of mobile media consumption. 

The Mobile Consumer

Nielsen Wireless estimates that in the first quarter of 2007, more than 33 million persons 12 and older used mobile web in the past 30 days, and more than 8 million persons 12 and older viewed video on their mobile phone (this excludes videos created with a phone’s camcorder function).  According to the CTIA (the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry), there are more than 230 million wireless subscriptions in the U.S.  Nielsen also estimates that:

• At least 7% of 18-34 year-olds viewed mobile video programming in the first quarter of 2007 while at least 25% used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet.

• As of May 31, more than half, 55%, of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total incomes of $75,000 or above.

• Subscribers to different carriers vary in terms of cable status: people in Sprint households were 30% more likely than people in T-mobile households to have a digital broadcast satellite (DBS) system.  People in Verizon Wireless households are 26% more likely to have digital cable service in their home (39% of Verizon Wireless household persons had wired digital cable compared to 31% of U.S. Persons 2+).

• The mobile video audience skews somewhat older and male: 46% of the mobile video audience is 35 years or older and 54% of the audience is male.

• There are differences in traditional television viewing by wireless carrier: 
  • The rating for the May 23 American Idol finale on FOX was higher among people in Verizon households than those in Sprint or AT&T households by differences of 11 percent and 7 percent, respectively. 
  • Looking at primary users of mobile video-enabled phones across the 2006-2007 TV season, American Idol earned the highest rating among Sprint subscribers, averaging a 13.2 rating during Tuesday telecasts and a 13.5 rating during Wednesday telecasts among Sprint’s primary users of video-enabled phones.

 

About Nielsen Wireless

In October 2006, Nielsen launched Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services, a measurement service for video games and mobile phone users. Due to the expansion of scope beyond media measurement, that service was subsequently split into two services: Nielsen Games and Nielsen Wireless. Mobile Vector is the first product to come out of the Nielsen Wireless service.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek), trade shows and the newspaper sector (Scarborough Research). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA.. For more information, please visit, http://www.nielsen.com.

 

# # #