New research from TNS shows that mobile users across the world want one thing from device manufactures – better battery life. Consumers are definitely interested in converging devices and new features, but as we pointed out with phones capable of playing music, consumers will not accept these new features at the expense of battery life.

TNS asked 7,000 mobile users in 15 countries regarding their preferences for device capabilities and features. Over 75% of respondents said better battery life is the main feature they want from phones, PDAs and similar devices.

For converged devices (with a phone), the top required feature in 14 of the 15 was “two days of battery life during active use”. In China, the 15th country, respondents most requested “20 Gigabytes of memory” as the key feature in the future. Along the same lines, battery life was listed as one of the top reasons “consumers do not use games, music, and TV applications on their mobile more frequently”.

Other key features of the report included:

• 48% of respondents across all countries listed “high resolution camera and video camera” as an important feature
• 47% of respondents across all countries listed “20 Gigabytes of memory” as an important feature
• In Brazil, 53% of respondents listed video conferencing as an important feature
• 46% of mobile phone users across all countries send pictures and photos via MMS, with higher usage in particular countries: 80% in Japan, 68% in France, 66% in Korea, 65% in the UK
• 46% of mobile phone users cited the cost of MMS as the main reason for the lack of MMS uptake, while 22% said “photo and video quality” and 15% said interoperability problems was the reason
• 23% of mobile phone users across all countries send video or audio clips through MMS

The study also found that developing countries without a strong fixed line communication infrastructure show a much higher usage of VoIP when compared to more developed countries. As examples, VoIP penetration levels are 44% for Brazil, 30% for India, 22% for Russia, 2% in Japan and 2% in the Netherlands.

We have only seen summary information for this new research report, but the findings do seem interesting and presented clearly. The usage rates for MMS appear a little high when compared to known usage and revenues from these services, but that may be accounted for in consumer understanding of the services they are actually using.