Smartphone and tablet adoptions grow strong in New Zealand

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND: 64 percent of New Zealanders aged between 15 and 65 currently own a smartphone, and ownership levels are expected to grow strongly reaching 90 percent penetration in 2018.

Android (64 percent) leads over the Apple iOS (24 percent) as the preferred operating platform. As smartphone suppliers continue to improve their functionality at cheaper price points, Apple's market share is predicted to drop further over the next few years.

Frost & Sullivan's new research shows that over the past five years, mobile devices have transitioned from being used primarily for voice and text to more sophisticated multi-functional usage based on their mobile media capabilities.

Phil Harpur, senior research manager, Australia and New Zealand ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan said, "44 percent of New Zealand smartphone users mainly utilise their smartphones to regularly engage with mobile media. 61 percent of smartphone users access social networking via an app or via an internet site at least once a month while the other activities that are becoming more common include job search (36 percent at least once in every six months), house buying (29 percent) and car purchase (29 percent)."

Smartphones are also widely used in the shopping process. "51 percent of smartphone users have used their smartphone to locate stores, 31 percent to compare prices, and 28 percent of all New Zealand internet users aged between 15 and 65 have purchased physical goods online during the last 12 months via a smartphone, whereas 18 percent have purchased via a tablet," added Harpur.

As smartphone functionality improves with higher resolutions and larger screens, faster internet access via 4G networks, higher data downloads and more intuitive user interfaces, mobile media capabilities will increase and smartphones will be the preferred device over laptops/PC's and tablets.

"Boosted by improvements to processing speeds and upgrades to screen sizes and resolution, over 56 percent of smartphone users are watching user generated content such as videos on Youtube at least once a month, while 26 percent do so most days. Driven by portable tablets such as Apple's 2013 releases of the new iPad Air, usage for consumers on the move will also rise," mentioned Harpur.

"Aided by a plethora of globally produced and hosted web content, an increasing amount of video content is being viewed on laptops, tablets, smartphones, internet connected TVs and gaming devices in preference to the traditional TV set, and this trend is expected to increase significantly over the next five years. Additionally, mobile devices are integrated into the overall lounge room experience through applications such as social media," Harpur added.

Just under half of all smartphone users read newspaper articles on a smartphone via internet / m-sites at least once a month; 31 percent do so on a daily basis. Although consumers increasingly read news, books or other digital content on smartphones, viewing levels of e-books and e-magazines are much lower than newspaper articles which are generally more suitable for shorter or on-the-go viewing.

32 percent of consumers download an album or a song from sites such as iTunes at least once a month and 27 percent do so from a streaming or cloud-based service such as Spotify. Streaming music content is proving to be a major disrupter to the business model of the traditional music industry as fewer consumers opt to for individual albums, whether CD's, DVD's or through iTunes, opting instead to access music libraries from sites such as Spotify or Pandora via a monthly subscription

 

26 percent of New Zealanders aged between 15 and 65 currently own a tablet and 42 percent of all households have at least one member who owns a tablet. Tablet ownership and usage is expected to grow strongly over the next few years. Penetration of tablets is predicted to increase from 44 percent in 2013 to 78 percent in 2018. Apple's iPad market share inNew Zealand is predicted to drop from 59 percent to less than 40 percent over the next five years, as more vendors enter the market at cheaper price points.

62 percent of tablet users read a news article on an internet site / m-site or via an app at least once a month. However, a significant proportion of tablet users do not read newspaper articles at all online. Media publishers can boost readership by offering a more content optimised for the tablet. Within five to ten years, tablets and smartphones would have overtaken print as the most popular channel to access news content," Harpur explained.