Big Four U.S. Carriers Battle for Customers in Tight Wireless Business Market

Exclusive Research from Yankee Group and Mobile Enterprise Magazine Takes Pulse of Enterprise Customer Satisfaction

Boston, MA Feb 11, 2010 - The U.S. wireless business market will grow from 78 million subscribers today to more than 90 million by 2013. And with that growth comes fierce competition for market share among the Big Four U.S. carriers?AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

In an exclusive research project, Yankee Group and Mobile Enterprise Magazine teamed up to survey businesses' satisfaction with their wireless carriers across 10 categories for wireless voice services and 11 categories for wireless data.  

Read a summary of the report, "Taking the Pulse of the Wireless Business Market: U.S. Carrier Satisfaction Study" at www.mobileenterprisemag.com/carriers or get the full report at http://www.yankeegroup.com/ResearchDocument.do?id=53027.

Highlights include:

- The Big Four carriers dominate the U.S. wireless market, owning 99 percent of primary voice relationships among large businesses and 92 percent among small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The best way for carriers to grow share, therefore, is to steal subscribers from rivals.

- Overall satisfaction across all categories and carriers is relatively high. Wireless voice satisfaction high notes include ease of activation, voice quality, account management and device selection. For wireless data services, ease of activation, account management and device selection score well.

- International service capabilities, data speeds/throughput, and data service and device pricing leave room for improvement. SMBs seem especially sensitive to these issues compared to their large business counterparts.

- Little difference exists between carriers ranking at the top and bottom of categories in many instances, revealing that differentiation may be difficult to achieve. However, some carriers shine where others falter within the sub-categories:

  • Verizon comes out ahead in voice and data coverage and quality, and scores consistently well across the board for SMBs.
  • Sprint shows high consistency among large enterprises for wireless voice services.
  • AT&T and T-Mobile largely have the advantage in international capabilities over their CDMA rivals.

"Growth within the business segment is less about uncovering new relationships than stealing subscribers from competitors," explains Eugene Signorini, Yankee Group VP and the author of the study. "The growth of smartphones, mobile applications, and 3G and soon-to-be 4G mobile broadband services sets the stage for a renewed round of competition among wireless operators for the mind share and market share of business subscribers."

About Mobile Enterprise Magazine
Mobile Enterprise covers all aspects of the mobile work force, from wireless infrastructure to WLANs. From supply chain solutions to mobile CRM. From rugged wireless devices in the harshest environments to sleek smartphones in the finest boardrooms. We look beyond the solutions, addressing processes and strategies involved in mobilizing your work force, managing mobile devices and infrastructure, and ensuring a secure environment. Our print, online and e-publications, Web seminars, White Papers and live events feed the mobile decision-maker's need for real-world information about what's working today--and what's on the horizon.

About Yankee Group
Yankee Group is the preeminent research and advisory firm equipping enterprises to profit in a mobile world. The core of our content is proprietary research and analytics on the attitudes, behaviors and usage patterns of mobile users. Based on this research, we provide a range of actionable data, insights and advices to marketing, strategy and product executives driving the mobility revolution in leading companies worldwide.

Contacts:

  • Susan Nunziata, Mobile Enterprise Magazine, +1-973-607-1374, Editor@MobileEnterpriseMag.com

     

  • Ashlee Clevenger, Yankee Group communications, +1–617–598–7268, mediarelations@yankeegroup.com