What you need to know
- UK carrier EE says that the easing of lockdown in the country has drastically changed customer behavior.
- It says that traffic to travel and holiday sites more than doubled in July.
- Food delivery and fitness apps all saw drops in use as pubs, restaurants, and bars reopened.
UK carrier EE says that the easing of lockdown restrictions in the country has drastically changed the way people use their phones.
In a press release today, Marc Allera, CEO of BT's Consumer Division, said that "the easing of lockdown has driven notable changes in the ways our customers are using our mobile network." Notably, EE says that traffic to travel and holiday websites like Airbnb, Booking.com, easyJet, Ryanair, and Skyscanner more than doubled in July:
When Boris Johnson announced the decision to start easing lockdown in the UK on 23rd June, people started making plans to travel again and take long-awaited holidays. Across the UK, EE's network saw traffic for Airbnb, Booking.com, easyJet, Ryanair, and Skyscanner more than double two days after the Prime Minister's address, compared to the same time the day before his announcement... In the following weeks, the search for trips continued to grow in popularity. As lockdown measures eased further, mobile traffic on Booking.com increased, with the peak on the 5th August more than double that on 1st July.
EE says that conversely, food delivery apps like Deliveroo and Uber Eats saw user counts drop by more than half between June 3 and July 15 as pubs and restaurants reopened. Peak delivery times also shifted later as more workers returned to offices, ordering after their daily commute.
Fitness also took a big hit, with traffic for Strava and MapMyRun decreasing by nearly 30% peak usage between June and July. EE says that people are also making fewer phone calls as guidelines around seeing friends and family begin to relax.
