Consumers are slowly but surely increasing adoption of unconventional & innovative offerings.

Today’s American consumer – confronted with a seemingly endless stream of evolving technologies and converging product offerings, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video content available on cell phones – continues to move at a measured, but upward, pace toward adoption, according to recent findings from the 2005 Convergence Audit.

For example, the Audit shows that while only about one out of every 10 households is subscribing to phone service through non-traditional sources, including cable companies and ‘pure play’ VoIP providers, another three percent and four percent of households respectively say they definitely or probably will subscribe to phone service through a cable company or a VoIP provider in the next 12 months.

“Bolstering this trend is a comparatively high level of awareness of these services, with nearly 50 percent of households surveyed reporting they have heard of Internet phone service,” said Kristen Borgman, a Director of Primary Research at Integras, the advanced analytical services division of Claritas Inc. that administers the Convergence Audit.

The audit is a survey of 50,000-plus households that covers the converging industries of wireline and wireless telephony, cable and satellite television, the Internet, and energy, providing important insight into consumer preferences and behaviors. Data from the 2004 Audit was recently featured in a USA Today cover story on the tech-savvy consumer. See article

As for consumers who have not only abandoned traditional land-line phone service, but all land-line service completely, the study found that 12 percent of cell phone households today are wireless-only, up from seven percent in 2004 and five percent in 2003. This trend is further intensified in the 18-29 age group, where over one-third of all cell phone households are wireless-only, according to the study.

Consumers are also beginning to show shifts in the way they experience entertainment content, including videos, television, photos and music. Underscoring the increasing popularity of portability and convergence of electronics for entertainment, the study shows that just over 30 percent of households are viewing video content on their PCs, 29 percent are watching video with a portable video player, and 13 percent of households are viewing video content on their cell phone.

A sampling of other notable findings include:

Alternative Phone Service Usage by Age – Subscribers to both types of alternative phone service – cable and VoIP – are much more likely to be from younger households. The highest penetration is among those under 35 years old at six percent for cable phone service and four percent for VoIP. The numbers go down incrementally as age increases.

Primary Phone Service – Among households with both traditional landline local phone service and cellular/wireless service, 16 percent indicated that they consider their cellular/wireless service to be their primary phone service.

Video Product Ownership – Adoption of video products in the media spotlight today, such as DVRs, HDTV and LCD/plasma TVs, is still in the early stages, with market penetration for most of these products at 20 percent or lower.

Video-on-Demand (VOD) – Corresponding to a wider roll-out of VOD offerings across cable operators in the past year, on-demand use has grown significantly, with nearly 40 percent of digital cable households now viewing free VOD and movies on-demand, and 12 percent using subscription VOD.

DSL vs. Cable Modem – Subscription Intent – Among households without DSL, eight percent indicated they definitely or probably will subscribe in the next 12 months, and seven percent of the households without a cable modem indicated likelihood to subscribe. Further, those who are likely to subscribe to cable modem service skew slightly younger.

Reasons for Choosing The Type of High-Speed Connection – In comparing cable modem service against DSL, nearly twice as many DSL households cited price and customer service as a reason for choosing this type of broadband service – 33 percent of DSL subscribers cited price versus 18 percent of cable modem subscribers, and 20 percent cited service versus 15 percent of cable modem subscribers. For cable modem households, speed and reliable performance are more often a reason for their choice, with 74 percent of these households citing speed compared to 65 percent of DSL households. As for reliable performance, the split was cable modem at 42 percent and DSL at 38 percent.

For more information at http://www.claritas.com