UK consumers revealed as early adopters of new technologies
UK consumers are some of the earliest adopters of new communications technologies, according to new research by Ofcom.
They are among the best connected for broadband, mobile and digital TV and the UK has seen the fastest growth in smartphone take-up. UK consumers are also enjoying lower prices for communications services than many consumers across the world, according to Ofcom’s fifth International Communications Market report.
Take-up of communication services across the world is continuing at a rapid pace, despite the recession, with consumers less likely to cut down on services, particuarly broadband, than they are on other areas such as holidays.
UK households have comparatively high levels of take-up of communications services, with among the highest take-up of landlines, fixed broadband connections, mobile connections and digital TV at the end of 2009.
Germany just beat the UK to claim the highest take-up of landline services, while Italy has the highest mobile take-up (with 95% of the population owning a mobile phone). However, the UK is behind other countries in the adoption of VoIP services with only 5 subscribers for every 100 people. Although the UK did see an average 27% annual increase in VoIP subscribers between 2006 and 2009.
Across most countries, the desktop PC is still the most popular device used to access the internet at home, followed by the laptop. But in the UK the opposite is true with laptops being the most popular device used to access the internet at home, used by 69% of internet users.
Mobile internet is also popular with people in the UK with 29% of internet users saying they use their mobile to access the internet at home. According to Ofcom’s research, the UK saw the highest growth in smartphone take-up in the past year with a 70% rise in subscriber numbers between January 2009 and January 2010.
While downloading mobile apps varies little across countries, use of mobile mapping and direction services has grown fastest in the UK (86% increase since 2009) with nine in every 100 people in the UK using these services.
People in the UK are also using their mobile phones for social networking more than in other countries (24% of UK consumers). Younger people (in the UK) are more likely to visit social networking sites on their mobiles than in other countries, with 45% of 18-24s and 38% of 25-34s doing this. The number of social networkers is also higher in the UK than other comparator countries among 18-24s and 55-64s.
The UK and Spain lead the way with digital TV take-up at 91%, as digital switchover is implemented across the globe. While UK consumers are ahead of the rest of the world in take-up of HD ready TV sets (59% of UK households, ahead of the US with 57%), take-up of HDTV services is lower in the UK than in other countries, where take-up tends to be linked to the amount of HDTV channels available.
Overall, UK TV viewers watched more TV than the average 207 minutes per day, watching 225 minutes, unchanged from 2008. Although US TV viewers watched more TV than in any other country with 280 minutes per day.
The UK had the second highest number of homes with pay TV DVRs (such as Sky+ and V+) at the end of 2009, according to Ofcom, with 7.8 million devices, up by 40% on 2008.
Ofcom’s research also found that the UK has more consumers watching TV on the internet with just under a quarter (24%) of consumers claiming to do this every week. This rose to 45% when asked whether they had ever accessed TV content on the internet.
Digital radio take-up in the UK was the highest among the countries Ofcom surveyed with almost a third claiming to own and use a digital radio.
In terms of advertising, TV remained the largest single source of advertising spend (38% of total, a decline of 9% on the previous year) and internet advertising expenditure grew 1% between 2008 and 2009 to £37 billion. The internet accounted for a larger proportion of advertising spend (27%) in the UK than in any other comparator country.
Although TV and radio advertising has declined, TV and radio subscriptions have increased, despite the economic downturn. Pay TV subscriptions increased by 5.8%, and satellite radio subscriptions grew by 5.1%.