Skip to Content

Defensiveness of Telecom stocks $T $VZ $VOD

In a new study conducted, it shows that even if your income is low, it is difficult to live without your smartphone

  1. Smartphone ownership is the last things to be cut when income is reduced
  2. They would rather move into cheaper housing than give up their iPhones
  3. Income < 15000 yet they own a smartphone

When a twentysomething’s budget is tight, her smartphone is far from the first expense to go, suggests a new study from Nielsen.

The survey of 20,000 U.S. mobile customers found that smartphone ownership skews toward the young and the wealthy — exactly as you’d expect.

What is more surprising, however, is this nugget: smartphone penetration among young people in the lowest income bracket is higher than it is among older people in the wealthiest bracket.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, more than half of respondents who make less than $15,000 each year said they own a smartphone. This might be explained if the parents of many college-age students footing their children’s phone bills. Still, even in the next oldest, post-college age group, the percentage of those in the same income bracket who own a smartphone was a mere 13% lower.

Making less than $15,000 in a year doesn’t stop 43% of these 25- to 34-year-old mobile customers from paying for a smartphone.

Meanwhile, fewer than 20% of respondents older than 45 who make less than $15,000 said they owned a smartphone.

This provides a moat that the service will always be required.

A Caveat here: This does not mean that telecom operators can enjoy fat margins. Competition is intense as the content is likely not provided by the telecoms but the rich content providers. Their old voice and text business gets cannibalize so they may see falling profits. Nash equilibrium plays an important role here.

I run a free Singapore Dividend Stock Tracker . It  contains Singapore’s top dividend stocks both blue chip and high yield stock that are great for high yield investing. Do follow my Dividend Stock Tracker which is updated nightly  here.

Kyith

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.