European consumers still cautious of high roaming costs

EU roaming regulation is having little impact on consumers’ mobile usage habits while abroad, according to a survey. Although 56% of respondents with a mobile phone stated that they were aware of the rules regarding roaming, 77% of them claimed that it had made no difference to how they used their mobile phone when traveling abroad.

Although there is  introduction of legislation specifically designed to lower the cost of using a mobile phone within the EU, roaming charges appear to continue to weigh heavily on consumers’ minds. More than one-third i.e. 38% of online respondents indicated that they did not use their mobile phone at all while they were abroad, with 54% of these identifying the cost of usage as a reason for this.

Inspite of this current reluctance,the mass-market uptake of sophisticated smartphone devices continues to grow and  there is a growing consumer desire to use mobile phones for social networking and micro-social blogging while abroad. Half of all online respondents with a mobile between the age of 18 and 34 said they would  like to access some form of data service when traveling abroad, while 62 percent of these highlighted cheaper roaming rates as the factor which would encourage them to do so.