Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO, famously believed that consumers cannot accurately predict their demand for a product they have never seen. “Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do,” he said. “People don't know what they want until you show it to them.”
That is not unusual in market research: people often say they will do something, and do not. They often tell researchers they will not do something, and do. People are often incapable of articulating why they do things or how they would behave in the future.
And price always matters. Respondents often indicate they will spend more for a product or feature than actual behavior suggests they will. In other cases the wrong customers are surveyed. Perhaps the wrong questions are asked, or those who interpret the data are not close enough to the customer reality to interpret the data. And it always is tough to make valid estimates of demand for products that do not yet exist.
That is likely true of much 5G demand research as well.
A survey by Global Wireless Solutions finds U.K. consumers have “a lack of enthusiasm” for 5G. While 19 percent said that they expected that the speed of 5G would change the way they use their mobile device, 67 percent of those surveyed were content to keep using 4G until their service provider automatically transferred them to a 5G network.
Asked about whether they believe 5G will improve the quality of their mobile service, the results were evenly split between those who believed it would, and those who did not know. About 15 percent of respondents also indicated that they do not ever intend to purchase a 5G-capable phone.
The results indicate a level of indifference around 5G and a lack of urgency from both businesses and consumers when it comes to taking advantage of the emerging network.
Business users seem more optimistic, but still seem in no terrible hurry to adopt 5G. Half of business respondents say (56 percent) 5G is already important, More than a quarter (27 percent) identify that 5G will be important to their business in the future.
But only about 20 percent say 5G applications and services are one of their top three mobile priorities over the next 12 months.
Fully 76 percent of respondents say they do plan to buy 5G phones. Some 53 percent believe they will do so within three years.
About 19 percent believe 5G speed will change the way they use their phones. Yet 39 percent do not know whether 5G will improve the quality of mobile service, compared to 4G.
None of the uncertainty can be resolved until customers (consumer and business) have had some time to use 5G, and until new use cases are developed and deployed. That might take five years. It might take a decade. It could take longer.
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