• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 13, 2015

According to Nielsen Mobile Insights, 31% of U.S. wireless subscribers describe their voice calling usage as “low,” but that percentage is actually up 3% from 28% at the end of 2014. Still, the probability that a subscriber simply doesn’t call much is not moving too quickly.

The research shows that the number of calls made and received has stayed relatively stable this year across all ages and races, says the report. In fact, over the past year, the number of calls across all ages and ethnic groups has changed less than one call per day on average.

What is changing, though subtly says the report, is the amount of time spent on the phone, which is declining except among certain groups.

By age, wireless users 55 and older spend the least amount of time on their phones, followed by those 18-24. But while the minutes spent on the phone has decreased year-over-year for those 25-34, 35-54 and 55+, mobile users 18-24 are actually spending more time making calls—and not just by a few seconds. In fact, they used 33 more anytime minutes on calls in third-quarter 2015 than they did in third-quarter 2014, says the report.

By race, African-Americans spend the most time talking on their phones, and the number of minutes they spent is up since third-quarter 2014. Comparatively, however, all other races and ethnicities used fewer minutes, including Hispanics, who spend the second-most amount of time on the phone. And the decline for this group year-over-year was significant; more than 40 minutes.

When are wireless users placing these calls, asks the report. In a look at the New York market, Nielsen Mobile Performance panelists are still making some calls at all hours of the day. And call time peaks across the hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Traditional cellphone habits are surprisingly stable, concludes the report. Customers are buying a new-and-improved device each year, but technological process has not killed the old-fashioned, spoken “hello.”

If the amount of time chatting on  cellphones is stable or slightly down, does that mean more texting more, asks the study. Looking at text adoption, the percentage of subscribers who use text messaging only increased 1% over the past year, rising from 78% to 79%. So the likelihood of texting hasn’t changed by much, concludes the report.

The original release may be found here.