Voxox Survey Results Reveal Insights into How Consumers Use OTT Communication Apps
March 2, 2015
Usage trends have key takeaways for operators considering OTT partnerships
BARCELONA (MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS) and SAN DIEGO – March 2, 2015 – Voxox®, the most comprehensive cloud-based rich communication service for consumers and businesses, today announced that, for the first time, it is releasing insights into how its user base is engaging with its Over-the-Top (OTT) communications app. Among its findings, Voxox's survey data shows that OTT voice calling is even more important to users than OTT messaging when both are available, indicating that operators considering partnerships with OTTs that do not offer voice features may be missing significant revenue opportunities. The data also shows extensive business usage within the OTT communications app, which supports the notion that there is strong demand for more advanced business functionality that operators and their OTT partners can offer to boost revenues. Another key finding is that a large percentage of users surveyed are calling local friends, which shows that consumers are integrating OTT apps into their everyday lives, beyond simply travel and long distance phone calls.
“We wanted to share some usage trends because there are interesting takeaways for our operator partners, including the importance of voice calling and business features,” said Bryan Hertz, CEO of Voxox. “Voice calling isn't going away any time soon. When we consider this era of app overload and siloed ecosystems where consumers are inundated with apps and limited to in-app communications, consumers will continue to demand more flexible options that not only provide a greater range of functionality, but also the ability to communicate outside of the app -- regardless of device, carrier or location.”
The specific survey highlights are as follows:
Survey respondents are primarily using the OTT app to communicate with friends (as compared to family), both locally and internationally: 52 percent of respondents use the app to call local friends – 20 percent call friends in another country – as opposed to only 13.8 percent who are calling family in another country or 7.5 percent who are calling local family. Similarly, 58.5 percent of respondents use the app to text local friends – 21 percent text friends in another country – as opposed to only 7.5 percent who are texting local family or 8.9 percent who are texting family in another country.
Voice calling is the most widely used feature: In an age where texting has become pervasive, 82 percent of respondents reported that voice calling is the feature they use most within the OTT app. (The Voxox app offers a wide range of capabilities, which include worldwide calling and related voice features, such as a free phone number, call forwarding, voicemail transcription, and much more; worldwide texting; faxing; text language translation; media sharing, group messaging, and more.)
Voxox users report a crossover in usage: Nearly half of those surveyed (43 percent) not only use Voxox for personal communications, but also use Voxox for work. These findings speak to a bigger trend in which people want to use apps that can suit their needs both at work and in their free time.
Millennials make up the vast majority of active users: Millennials, ages 19-35, represent the majority of the app's most active users with 71.4 percent of respondents falling into this category.
Approximately 2,000 respondents were surveyed regarding usage preferences and another approximately 2,000 users were surveyed regarding demographics. The top five geographic locations of the roughly 4,500 unique respondents (total of two surveys combined) indicated strong OTT communications interest and usage in the highly competitive markets of India and South Korea, followed by U.S., Saudi Arabia and Canada. Both surveys were conducted via in-app notifications on the Voxox iOS platform, and similar usage patterns have also been observed within the Voxox app on the Android platform.
To learn more about the survey results, as well as the Voxox For Operators Program, please visit the Voxox booth in Hall 1, 1H31 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. For more information on Voxox, please visit www.voxox.com.
About Voxox
Voxox is an innovator in unified cloud communication solutions for consumers and businesses. For consumers and its operator partners, Voxox delivers cutting-edge mobile and desktop applications that integrate voice, video, messaging, fax, media sharing and more. For businesses, Voxox provides an extensive suite of carrier-grade business phone solutions, including hosted IP-PBX, SIP Trunking, a wide array of wholesale services, such as high volume SMS, and the company's new virtual PBX service, Cloud Phone. The foundation of the company's offerings is its award-winning unified communications platform in the cloud, which enables the company and its customers to build powerful, scalable applications and services. Founded in 2006, Voxox is headquartered in San Diego. For more information, please visit http://www.voxox.com.
