How The US Mobile Phone Market Is Different
Nothing particularly new, but reiterating some of the differences between the US mobile phone market and the European market. In Europe, a much higher percentage of people have phones, but they use them a lot less than those in the US. This is partly explained by the fact that the US market is a lot more competitive, driving down per-minute prices. The article also suggests that lower market penetration in the US is due to the fact that the receiving party also pays for airtime (though, I wonder if to be accurate the per minute voice charges should then be doubled in the US - since carriers are receiving fees from both the caller and the receiver in terms of airtime). In Europe, the system works like US landlines do, where it's only the calling party that pays - so those who don't want to spend as much money can still buy a phone just to receive calls. Another important item, which the article linked here doesn't seem to point out is that, in Europe, text messaging is much more widely adopted, meaning that it probably is a substitute for many of the voice minutes in the US.
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