You’ve got a lot to choose from when it comes to cell phone plans. And figuring out exactly who to go with and which plan to choose can be difficult.
But you’re not the only one trying to figure out the market. A few major players in the US asked us to find the differences between the prepaid and postpaid cellphone market to help them better market new plans and services to their customers.
So in September 2013, we conducted a survey through Computer Assisted Web Interviews among a statistically representative sample of 1,003 postpaid cellphone users and 403 adult prepaid cellphone users in the US. Here’s what we found:
• 67% of prepaid cellphone users are women. That’s larger than the 51% of postpaid cellphone users who are women.
• 60% of prepaid cellphone users have annual incomes below $35,000, with 27% reporting income over $50,000.
• In the postpaid world, only 28% of users have an annual income below $35,000, with 57% reporting income over $50,000.
• Prepaid users lack full-time employment, with only 29% report being employed full-time, and 18% of them are not working.
• Over 44% of postpaid cellphone users are employed.
• Both prepaid and postpaid cellphone users prefer football (44%), baseball (26%) and basketball (24%).
• Both groups of participants enjoy rock, country and pop music.
• Hip hop tends to be more popular among prepaid users, with 37% of prepaid users enjoying hip hop compared to just 24% of postpaid users.
At MaCorr, we’ve been a key part of helping the wireless industry understand their market. To see some of the other insight we’ve garnered, read our post on wireless carrier pricing.