Over 70% of respondents in German and French-speaking Switzerland spent their summer holidays outside of Switzerland, with the most popular destination being Italy (19%), closely followed by France (15%) and Germany (13%). Swisscom has also felt the effects of this travel bug, as its customers have surfed the net on their phones twice as much as in their summer holidays last year. "We have been making significant reductions in our data roaming prices for eight years. The prices are now so attractive that our customers are increasingly using their smartphones to browse the Internet when they are abroad. This summer, we have recorded three time more megabytes being used in the form of data packages than in 2013", explains Marc Werner, Head of Residential Customers at Swisscom. The 50 MB data packages have proven to be the most popular of these packages.
More than half of the persons taking part in the survey who went on holiday between June and August could not bear to be without their smartphones or access to the Internet. It also came as little surprise that a significantly larger number of younger holidaymakers (15-29-year-olds) surfed the net in comparison with their older counterparts (50-74-year-olds). It was also predictable that most travellers chose to browse the web via WLAN wherever possible. Nevertheless, data packages are becoming increasingly important, particularly among Swisscom customers. This was reflected by the fact that the holidaymakers who surfed the net using data packages were much more likely to be Swisscom customers than those of another provider. "The carefree surfing of our customers can be attributed to our attractive tariffs and to the Swisscom Cockpit, which allows our customers to keep their costs under control at all times", says Marc Werner.
Customers using their smartphones while on holiday are predominantly sending or receiving e-mails (63%) or sending messages via a messenger service (61%). Whereas young girls mainly liked to spend their time chatting and using Facebook, men preferred browsing news portals. Smartphones were also used for navigation purposes with 1 in 5 holidaymakers checking their smartphones to make sure they take the right route. A fast Internet connection is required for navigation and music-streaming services in particular. In this respect, Swisscom customers are at an advantage as Swisscom's 50 4G/LTE roaming agreements in almost 30 countries ensure that it is a global leader. It is also the only Swiss provider to offer fast 4G data connections outside of Switzerland.
Information regarding the survey
Between 29 August and 8 September 2014, a total of 1,047 persons who speak one of the country's national languages and use the Internet for private purposes at least once a week took part in the survey conducted in German-speaking Switzerland (809) and French-speaking Switzerland (238). The control sample was weighted in such a way as to ensure that it was representative of the Swiss Internet population. The survey was carried out by the LINK Institute on behalf of Swisscom with the aim of analysing how the Swiss population use their mobile phones while on holiday outside of Switzerland.
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