Here's some good news for mobile marketers: cell-only households are on the rise and becoming more affluent. New analysis from Mediamark Research Inc. shows 8.1% of U.S. households do not have landline telephones, up from just 4.2% in the spring of 2000.
Non-landline consumers—those who have chosen to rely solely on cellphones or no phone at all—are traditionally downscale. But the non-landline consumers of 2004 are increasingly younger and more upscale, according to MRI. In the spring of 2000, the median age for the non-landline population was 23% below that of the general adult population. By the spring of 2004, it was 30% lower.
Meanwhile, the median household income for the non-landline population rose from 63% below that of the general population to 49% below. And the college graduation rate for non-landline consumers has more than quadrupled, to 11.8%.
"After years of coexistence between cells and landlines, cellphones have recently begun to contribute to the desertion of landline service," said Andy Arthur, VP of Client Services at MRI
According to the spring 2004 MRI study, 68.9% of households have at least one cellphone, up from 63.8% in spring 2003. Most households (63.1%) have both a cellphone and a landline, and only 28.6% of households are using landlines exclusively.
The percentage of cell-only households has risen nearly fourfold in just three years, from 1.4% in spring 2001 to 5.5% in spring 2004. Cell-only households now account for 69% of all households without landline phones, compared to 30% in spring 2001.
Of the 8.1% of U.S. households that do not have landlines, more than three in 10 (31%) are truly "phoneless," having neither a cell nor a landline, down from 70% in spring 2001.
