Mobile customer segmentation based on smartphone measurement

Abstract While customer segmentation for mobile services is typically based on demographics and reported use, smartphone measurement software enables to add directly observed user behavior. This explorative paper develops customer segmentation on relevant metrics from the perspective of network operators, handset manufacturers, and application developers. We analyze the results of a smartphone measurement project among 129 users using latent class analysis. The data are subsequently related to demographics and psychographics, to enable lifestyles. We find that several service clusters can be defined from the perspectives of the usage of the network (i.e. voice, SMS and data) and the usage of content services (i.e. URLs and applications). We demonstrate that such clusters can be related to demographic as well as psychographic segments. The results provide fine grained insights in market segments as well as new hypotheses about mobile behavior that are open for further testing. While being exploratory in nature, the study demonstrates the relevance of customer segmentation on smartphone measurement data.