The study from Havas Group’s social media agency found that the process involves four key phases – information gathering, active research, decision making and deal hunting.

And social media has an important role with 25% of people looking to Twitter to inform their decision and Twitter also ranking among the top five point of contact in the research phase.

In terms of behaviours identified by the research, there are three motivations: improving current equipment (device or price); urgent replacement for break or theft; result of contract end-date.

For devices, the top five criteria for a switching were (in order): price, technical characteristics, operating system, camera quality and brand. Meanwhile the top reasons for switching carriers (in order) were: network coverage, network quality, price, internet speed and included services.

Socialyse global managing director Séverin Naudet said: "The mobile phone industry is extremely dynamic. With total worldwide mobile phone shipments of just under two billion units, the mobile phone industry will grow by over 10% this year.  

"We’ve been working closely with global telco companies, and this study really demonstrates not only how social is a powerful business solution, but how Twitter, in particular, can influence and impact the purchase decision. Social brings ROI to advertisers."