Insights

3

5

min read

Mobile Consumer Trends

Smartphones Are A Hub for Everything from Personal Finance to Wellness

Phong Huynh

Phong Huynh

Head of Research and Trends at Circles

Outline

Welcome to the fourth part of our series on mobile consumer insights. Our earlier posts covered four mobile consumer segments, their attitudes towards what makes a premium telecommunications service provider (telco) brand, and what they expect from telco service offerings. With that, let’s dive into how smartphones have continued to change people’s lives.

“We’re already cyborgs” Elon Musk famously tweeted because of humanity’s dependence on machines to maintain memory.

While Elon Musk’s tweet was responding to an online conversation about the extent to which humans were already partially made up of AI this holds through in other aspects of our lives too.

Telcos and smartphones are increasingly becoming the lynchpin of modern life, and we are now reaching the logical conclusion of the phrase ‘there’s an app for that.’ 

Digital natives are not only streaming their favourite shows on their phones, they’re sending money to their loved ones, investing, taking loans and donating to charity on their mobile devices.

With the rise of super apps, mobile consumers are increasingly looking to brands that can offer more than their core services. Non-telco offerings like streaming subscriptions and gaming are now seen as value-added services. 

Telcos provide the underlying infrastructure and knowhow to enable mobile connectivity, making them the most well-suited for transformation to agile techcos that can expand mobile-based service offerings to cater to digitally savvy consumers' expanding digital wants.

At Circles, we believe in going above and beyond for the customer—without having to do it alone! We work with ecosystem partners to provide access to content, services, and products that span from redeeming consumer products to subscribing to digital TV to purchasing movie tickets. 

Considering that people are already using apps to enhance their life experiences, there’s a lot of room for telcos to get creative with partnerships and rewards beyond the usual entertainment packages and e-wallets.

To 2024 and beyond

Conclusively, we’ve seen Singaporean telco customers have evolved in an interesting way, but really what everyone wants is a great product and a great customer experience, and we’ve seen these insights translate globally and form the foundation of what we do – to transform telco and create products that excite and delight customers. 

We launched Circles.life with the idea of shaking things up and giving power back to the customer. We focused on great customer experiences and more freedom for our mobile users, right down to having no contract plans. All this was possible by building our own end-to-end telco IT platform from the ground up.

As telco operators ourselves, we wanted to share some of our home market’s insights with you, so you can see what we can do for our clients.

If you’d like to learn more about how our end-to-end telco IT platform works, or how we’ve helped other telcos in their simplification, digitization, and transformation journeys, click the button below!

Like what you read? Follow us for more news and insights from Circles.

This is part four of our Telco Customer Insights series.

Catch the other posts below:

Get Your Free SaaS Demo

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

Block quote

Ordered list

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

Personalizing the Customer Experience at Every Touchpoint

 One of the most immediate and impactful uses of AI is in personalization. Telcos have long recognized that customer experience is more than just a differentiator—it’s central to loyalty and long-term success. AI enables telcos to create customer journeys that are tailored based on actual behavior and preferences.             

Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
Content
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
The telco industry has been notorious for poor customer service - in some cases, marketing professors even point to older telco ‘bad profit’ practices as poor examples of customer relationship management. Examples like these
This lack of transparency repulses customers and frustrates those who want to switch to better deals.

Heading

Content
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"
Complicated Billing and Bill Shock
“Why am I being charged for this?!"

Learn More

Insights

Mobile Consumer Segments

Mobile Consumer Segments: Flexible, Discerning, Price-sensitive, or Passive
Insights

Telco Consumer Trends

Premium Telcos are Less About Physical Stores and More About Service
Insights

Telco Consumer Trends

They Want ‘More’, ‘Flexibility’ and ‘Accessibility’ from Telco Digital Experiences

Insights

28 May 2024

Mobile Consumer Trends

Smartphones Are A Hub for Everything from Personal Finance to Wellness

Insights

28 May 2024

Mobile Consumer Trends

Smartphones Are A Hub for Everything from Personal Finance to Wellness

Written by

Phong Huynh

Head of Research and Trends at Circles

Welcome to the fourth part of our series on mobile consumer insights. Our earlier posts covered four mobile consumer segments, their attitudes towards what makes a premium telecommunications service provider (telco) brand, and what they expect from telco service offerings. With that, let’s dive into how smartphones have continued to change people’s lives.

“We’re already cyborgs” Elon Musk famously tweeted because of humanity’s dependence on machines to maintain memory.

While Elon Musk’s tweet was responding to an online conversation about the extent to which humans were already partially made up of AI this holds through in other aspects of our lives too.

Telcos and smartphones are increasingly becoming the lynchpin of modern life, and we are now reaching the logical conclusion of the phrase ‘there’s an app for that.’ 

Digital natives are not only streaming their favourite shows on their phones, they’re sending money to their loved ones, investing, taking loans and donating to charity on their mobile devices.

With the rise of super apps, mobile consumers are increasingly looking to brands that can offer more than their core services. Non-telco offerings like streaming subscriptions and gaming are now seen as value-added services. 

Telcos provide the underlying infrastructure and knowhow to enable mobile connectivity, making them the most well-suited for transformation to agile techcos that can expand mobile-based service offerings to cater to digitally savvy consumers' expanding digital wants.

At Circles, we believe in going above and beyond for the customer—without having to do it alone! We work with ecosystem partners to provide access to content, services, and products that span from redeeming consumer products to subscribing to digital TV to purchasing movie tickets. 

Considering that people are already using apps to enhance their life experiences, there’s a lot of room for telcos to get creative with partnerships and rewards beyond the usual entertainment packages and e-wallets.

To 2024 and beyond

Conclusively, we’ve seen Singaporean telco customers have evolved in an interesting way, but really what everyone wants is a great product and a great customer experience, and we’ve seen these insights translate globally and form the foundation of what we do – to transform telco and create products that excite and delight customers. 

We launched Circles.life with the idea of shaking things up and giving power back to the customer. We focused on great customer experiences and more freedom for our mobile users, right down to having no contract plans. All this was possible by building our own end-to-end telco IT platform from the ground up.

As telco operators ourselves, we wanted to share some of our home market’s insights with you, so you can see what we can do for our clients.

If you’d like to learn more about how our end-to-end telco IT platform works, or how we’ve helped other telcos in their simplification, digitization, and transformation journeys, click the button below!

Like what you read? Follow us for more news and insights from Circles.

This is part four of our Telco Customer Insights series.

Catch the other posts below:

Learn More

Insights

Mobile Consumer Segments

Mobile Consumer Segments: Flexible, Discerning, Price-sensitive, or Passive
Insights

Telco Consumer Trends

Premium Telcos are Less About Physical Stores and More About Service
Insights

Telco Consumer Trends

They Want ‘More’, ‘Flexibility’ and ‘Accessibility’ from Telco Digital Experiences