The site’s statistics show that 51% of people looking for phone bundles now search for a maximum of only 300 inclusive talk time minutes per month, compared with an average of over 600 minutes just a year ago.
That’s more than three times as many people as those looking for 20 minutes a day (600 minutes a month), and seven times as many as those requiring 30 minutes a day (900 minutes). A year ago, people were mostly hunting for deals of 600-1000 minutes.
A massive 87% of consumers are searching for 24 month contracts. That’s eight times as many as those hunting for 18-month contracts and 19 times as many as those reviewing 12-month deals.
Richard Cappin, DialToSave’s founder said: “The inclusive minutes trend is an indicator of just how important mobiles and smartphones in particular have become, for everything other than talking! Over half our consumers don’t want anything more than 300 minutes of talk-time a month. They want to surf, use their social networks, and send texts, much more than they want to talk. A lot of people seem more comfortable sending text messages in public places than they are making voice calls.
“It’s the other handset offerings that count nowadays. People are using features such as text messaging and social networking apps to communicate - even more than they’re using their own voice. The growing importance of mobile apps also increases the need for high speed data access via HSDPA and WiFi, which is now included with many low minute tariffs.”
He continued: “The smartphone also acts as a camera and MP3 player so the ability to make voice calls is just one of many features to take into account. We think there’s a clear trend of people having conversations over multiple text messages rather than talking, as over 70% of people using our site want unlimited texts every month. People are also choosing longer contracts, largely due to the lower handset costs and better cashback deals made available by retailers and networks for longer contracts.”
DialToSave uses search tools to help people choose their perfect mobile phone package. It was founded in 2003 and is one of the first websites to enable users to find phones by searching features, from QWERTY keyboards to video calling, WiFi to MP3 players.
The site also enables users to easily filter deals on everything from monthly cost to inclusive minutes, number of texts to data download limit.