In emerging markets 94 per cent of consumers want a more “social” address book experience

RESEARCH results announced today by messaging applications business Critical Path, reveal consumers in emerging markets are dissatisfied with their social networking experience, in line with their Western European neighbours.

Nine out of ten respondents access social networks on a weekly basis, yet approximately two thirds struggle with out of date contact information.

Critical Path surveyed seven countries to gauge the social networking habits of consumers in Latin America, AsiaPac and Northern Europe as part of a continuing series of global consumer research initiatives. Almost half (46 per cent) of the respondents are dissatisfied with their devices’ facility to share contact information, with only 36 per cent of respondents always updating changes to contact information across each of their social address books. Most (57 per cent) consumers are frustrated with the process of informing people about a change in their contact details. While approximately two thirds find integrating other people’s changes into their various address books even more frustrating.

Out of the 3,500 respondents surveyed:

• 94 per cent would like to be able to automatically update all of their contacts with new contact information
• 96 per cent would like the option to back up and restore address book information
• 95 per cent want choice over the types of updates they receive from social networking sites
• 49 per cent of consumers would be willing to pay for a service that updates and manages contacts and social networks in one place

“Our latest research shows social networks are becoming increasingly important in consumers’ daily online interactions”, says Mark Palomba, CEO Critical Path. “While user preferences vary from region to region, there is a clear demand for an intuitive solution that unifies fragmented contact information across social networks. Operators are ideally positioned to help ease these frustrations, particularly as mobile devices become more sophisticated. Critical Path developed Social Address Book in response to this growing demand. We understand consumer’s usability and security concerns and are delighted to be working with leading operators to deploy new services over a variety of devices.”

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