BOSTON (05/09/2000) - About one in three online investors use two-way pagers or wireless handheld computers to monitor their investments, a nationwide survey of 1,069 investors found. And about one in five use one or both devices to place the actual trades wirelessly.
The survey results, released today by Fidelity Investments Inc. in Boston, were conducted for Fidelity by Richard Day Research Inc., also in Boston, late last year.
A separate poll of 988 Fidelity.com users found that 25% of owners of Web-enabled wireless phones used them to monitor stocks or make transactions.
Fidelity officials saw the results as an indication of "remarkable" interest in wireless e-commerce, especially since the technology has only been available for two years, said Joseph G. Ferra, senior vice president of Fidelity Online Brokerage. Fidelity has run a proprietary application called InstantBroker for wireless investing since October 1998, and has about 56,000 subscribers. Online trades start at $14 apiece, Fidelity officials said.
International Data Corp. in Framingham, Massachusetts, said users of wireless Internet messaging and information services will grow from 7.4 million last year to 61.5 million in 2003.