Indonesian Mobile Internet Sim Card Switching Habit 2016 - Survey Report

The need of digital communication practice in our daily lives becomes more significant. Today, most of us are unable to live without our mobile phone that connecting us to the digital world. This condition then lead us to a phenomenon of people who regularly using temporary sim card that specifically used for accessing internet data. As we can see in most mobile phone stores, besides selling mobile phone limit, they also sell mobile phone sim card that offer big quota of internet data in relatively more affordable price. This opportunity then lead a new mobile data consumption habit among Indonesia mobile data users. They are not only reloading their mobile phone limit, but also regularly buying temporary sim card for mobile data connection. Interestingly, since there are number of mobile phone providers offering this kind of product, they face a rough competition since consumers tend to regularly switching from one provider to another. Understanding this phenomenon, we conduct a nationwide survey by asking 1.018 respondents about their internet sim card switching habit.

Apparently, the assumption of Indonesian mobile internet users who love to use temporary sim card specifically for internet purpose is true. 65% of Indonesian mobile data users said that they had the experience of buying temporary mobile phone sim card intended only for mobile internet data service. Instead of reloading their primary sim card, they were more likely to buy the temporary one. Their rationalization of buying temporary sim card for accessing internet depends on economic and efficiency issue. They considered if buying the temporary sim card for internet would give them more benefit both economically and efficiently.

We then tried to further discover Indonesian mobile internet users’ motives of buying temporary mobile phone sim card for internet service. At least there were four motives we discovered when we asked our respondents to select which of the following sentence reflects their consideration of buying the temporary sim card. First, temporary mobile phone sim card was considered as cheaper than reloading their primary sim card. Second, they considered that the tariff of mobile data service subscription in their primary sim card as expensive. Third, they were using dual sim card mobile phone, so that it would be much cheaper if they use temporary mobile phone sim card for internet service. At last, temporary mobile phone sim card for internet were more likely to offer bigger access quota.

As our respondents mentioned that temporary mobile phone sim card were more likely to offer bigger access quota, we asked them about the average quota of they frequently bought. Apparently, Indonesian mobile internet users were more likely to buy temporary mobile phone sim card that offer 1-3 GB. This finding the followed by mobile sim card that offer 4-6 GB, more than 8GB, 6-8 GB, and the least respondents were more likely to buy less than 1 GB.

Different pattern between men and women on purchasing temporary mobile phone sim card for internet access also be found regarding their brand loyalty. We asked whether they like to repurchase sim card from the same provider as they bought at first, or simply switch to other provider. Comparing both sexes, men were more likely to purchase the sim card from the same provider. In other hand, women were more likely to be switcher since they like to buy different provider from time to time.

To expand our understanding toward this case, we asked our respondents about their considerable factors on choosing temporary mobile phone sim card provider. The 20-29 years old respondents said that the price, amount of quota, and quality of network stability became their considerations. Moreover, the 30-35 years old respondents said otherwise since the amount of quota became their main consideration, and followed by price as well as the connection speed. At last, the 36-39 years old respondents said that their considerations were the price, amount of quota, and network stability.

Regarding their spending on temporary sim card, averagely 35% of Indonesian mobile data users spend IDR 41-60K each time they buy a temporary mobile phone sim card.

As our respondents said that price become a considerable factors on choosing temporary sim card for internet than their primary sim card, we then asked them whether they would like to stop buying the temporary sim card if their primary one offers better tariff. Interestingly, 91% of respondents agreed the idea. They said that they would stop buying the temporary sim card if their primary sim card offers more affordable tariff and bigger access quota.

At last, although apparently more than half of Indonesia mobile internet users were more likely to buy temporary sim card, there were 35% of them who didn’t. We asked them about their reasons of not buying temporary mobile phone sim card for internet data. At first, they considered buying temporary sim card and inserting it on their phone over and over again as less practical. At second, they assessed that their current primary sim card provider already fulfilled their satisfaction of excellent mobile data network service. At the last position, they considered that their current primary sim card provider offer more affordable tariff for mobile data package.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below (bahasa). JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.