From the survey result’s there are several interesting patters regarding cord cutters, those households that have only a wireless phone connection.
- The percentage of wireless-households has been growing from 29.7% in 2H2010 to 41.0% in 2H2013. All-adult households trail the general population in cord cutting, most likely because the segment has the oldest population cohorts. Only 39.1% of all-adults households have cut-the-cord as of December 2013, which is up from 27.8% at the end of 2010.
There is a greater propensity for households with children to be cord-cutters. At the end of 2013, 47.1% of such households were without a landline connection; an increase from 31.8% at the end of 2010.
Along with this trend landline-only households dropped from 6.2% to 3.8% for households with children and from 10.7% to 7.0% for all-adult households from 2H2010 through 2H2013. - Household ethnicity, also, shows a general trend in cord-cutting. At the end of 2013 53.1% of Hispanic-adults lived in wireless-only households, the highest of any segment. At 51.7%, the second mostly likely type of adult by race/ethnicity to be a cord-cutter are non-Hispanic other race, which would include Native Americans. The least likely group are adults in single-race white households at 35.1%.
- When looking at the household structure of cord-cutting US Adults, the structure most likely to be without a landline phone are unrelated adults living in the same household (e.g. roommates). 76.1% of adults living in such a household have only a wireless phone. This segment, also, is the smallest demographic of wireless-only household structures for the July 2013 – December 2013 survey period.
Source:
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. National Health Interview Survey. Early Release Reports on Wireless Substitution. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/releases.htm#wireless
[1] Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, July–December 2013. CDC. July 2014.
