Eighty-five percent of mobile consumers worldwide prefer to use a mobile device to access the Internet; mobile use appears to be distributed across occupations, income brackets: BuzzCity

Cindy Allen

SINGAPORE , September 19, 2012 (press release) – BuzzCity has today issued its latest global user survey looking into the behaviour and attitudes of mobile consumers. The survey reveals how integral the mobile internet has become in consumers’ daily lives across the age groups - 31% of 20-24 year olds and one in ten 30 – 34 year olds prefer to access the internet via their phones. The research also dispels the myth that this is only occuring with high-earning early adopters – it appears to be across occupations and income brackets with mobile internet users just as likely to be a machine operator (7%) as an office support worker (8%).

According to BuzzCity’s research, mobiles appear to be well established as the device of choice for internet use; 85% of those surveyed prefer to use a mobile to browse the internet. Some changes in behaviour were also observed as some (11%) users use their mobiles for surfing at home instead of PCs - most likely for communicating with friends.

One of the key findings has been the rise of the smartphone across BuzzCity’s ad network with handsets from Apple, BlackBerry, Samsung and HTC continuing to grow – smartphones now account for more than 32% of the phones that ads are served to. The growth of Samsung has been reflected in the growth of Android platform (11%) in our network.

Consumers see mobile as the “go-to” device that keeps them connected all the time but they are likely to complement this with PC or tablets. This shift is supported by the research findings that users are surfing with multiple devices; 6% now also surf with PC and 0.48% also surf with tablets. More are expected to surf with multiple devices as 27% plan to buy a PC and 11% a tablet within the next 12 months.

Dr KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity commented, “Smartphone usage has grown faster than many expected, countries like United Kingdom (89%), Saudi Arabia (94%) and UAE (92%) are now seeing smartphone penetration of more than 80%.”

“Our latest user survey has brought to the fore how integral mobiles are to consumers lives today – regardless of age or occupation. There is a strong preference for mobiles as the personal device that is connected 24/7, and that complements the PC or tablet experience. So for marketers to take advantage of this consumer behaviour we would recommend considering all of these multiple platforms when it comes to campaigns and products, however keep in mind mobile first.”

A lot of behaviour from mobile consumers remains unchanged - the majority of users (53%) spend up to 6 hours a day on multiple logins across devices to the internet. In this time users will be accessing the internet via their mobiles to communicate with friends (61%) and for entertainment (35%). And demand for media (31%) and financial services (23%), remain high.

By the end of August 2012 the BuzzCity network had served 131.5 billion banners, more than the whole of 2011 (126 billion).

The BuzzCity user survey questioned 10,800 people across 71 countries to find out how and where consumers are browsing the internet.

To access the BuzzCity Report, please visit reports.buzzcity.com.

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