Bulgarians follow the world's trends when it comes to the way in which they use communications technology, according to a study conducted on behalf of Vivacom by Gallup. The country's inhabitants are increasingly using mobile internet, with 49 percent of users' SIMs having mobile internet enabled. The most used mobile application by Bulgarian is Facebook, followed by Viber. Nearly 25 percent of mobile internet users shop over the mobile phone and only 3 percent still send SMS every day, according to the same research. The data is from regular surveys conducted by Gallup International on behalf of Vivacom between July 2016 and July 2017.
Within a year, customers using their phones only for calls declined from nearly 60 percent to 51 percent. Also, nearly 10 percent of customers use prepaid cards with only mobile internet service. For one year, end-users of Sim cards with only internet access increased by 2 percent.
SMS lost their importance at the expense of mobile applications such as Viber, What'sApp and Skype. Nearly a third of users, 28 percent, use daily mobile communication applications such as Viber, What'sApp or Facebook messenger. Voicemail and MMS also faded away and are now approaching zero. Only 2 percent use voicemail on a daily basis and only 1 percent of people use MMS every day.
Social networks end-users who visit Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn at least once a day represent 36 percent of the surveyed people, that's 3 percent more than people who use internet search engines every day.
Only 2 percent of Bulgarians enjoy the convenience of watching TV on their phones every day. However, Vivacom's forecasts these rates will rise over the next two years.
The most used mobile application by mobile internet users in Bulgaria is Facebook, followed by Viber. The Facebook Messenger application increased its share from 15 to 25 percent from the end of 2016 to the middle of 2017, while Facebook lost 13 percent of its the Bulgarian mobile audience in less than a year.
Nearly a quarter of Bulgarian mobile internet users are already shopping online via their phone, that's up from 15 percent at the end of 2016.
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