Australian Financial Review: Locked inside, Australians lose interest in their mobile phones


Appeared in: Australian Financial Review
Available online: Direct Link
07 April 2020

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WhistleOut Publisher Joe Hanlon, talks to John Davidson from the Financial Review about how the coronavirus-led lockdown has led to a surge of interest in the NBN and home internet, while consumer interest in mobile phones has slumped:

WhistleOut, a website that helps potential customers find new mobile phone and broadband plans, said it witnessed another trend at the same time as surging interest in new NBN plans: plummeting interest in new mobile phone plans.

In March, interest in new broadband plans outstripped interest in new mobile plans for the first time since it began monitoring interest in mobile phone and broadband plans a decade ago.

"The effect of social distancing precautions was immediately apparent to us," Joe Hanlon, publisher at WhistleOut, told The Australian Financial Review.

"For the first time in the history of our comparison service, interest in broadband products outpaced our mobile phone category.

"Typically traffic to mobile phone interest is about 10 per cent greater, but that trend flipped as soon as we all started working and learning from home."


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