The Converged Lifestyle
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30 Ianuarie 2012 |
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KPMG ROMÂNIA S.R.L. |
Adresa
DN 1 Bucureşti Ploieşti, Nr. 69-71
013685 Bucureşti, Sector 1
Telefon
+40-21-201.22.22
Fax
+40-21-201.22.11
Website
www.kpmg.md
www.kpmg.ro
Introduction
Convergence is not new – but the way consumers interact with technology is constantly changing. We believe we are in a new phase of convergence: the converged lifestyle. Get ready for some fast technology and even faster consumer adoption.
Ever since our first Consumers and Convergence study in 2006, we have been polling consumers in key markets around the world to find out what devices, technologies and services they are using and how they are using them.
Not surprisingly, we’ve seen a lot of change in just 5 years. In 2006, our questions focused on the use of landlines, mobile texting, instant messaging and internet browsing: smartphones were not widely adopted by consumers, and tablets did not exist. Social media was still in its infancy.
Today, consumers are talking about how technology enables their lifestyle. From buying goods online to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers seem to be more and more reliant on a range of technologies that perform important – although often overlapping – tasks.
Our survey demonstrates that convergence is alive and well in 2011. Sure, consumers are now faced with a bewildering array of devices. But they all seem to increasingly serve one purpose: to enable consumers to get what they want, when they want it.
The speed of consumer adoption also seems to be on the rise. In just 7 years, Facebook signed up more than 800 million active users; and in just 14 months Apple sold more than 25 million iPad® tablets. But with rapid adoption comes rapid change: business models are quickly evolving for a range of businessesincluding advertisers, retailers, content providers, mobile operators and banks.
Many traditional businesses are facing significant challenges adapting to this new world. The banking industry, for example, was somewhat slow to adopt online payments and – as a result – lost their share of this growing market to companies such as PayPalTM. What’s more, banks are now seen as being somewhat ‘new’ entrants into the online and mobile markets, and will need to reassert their security and privacy leadership in order to build trust with consumers online.
And while businesses will need to evolve to meet the changing demands of consumers, so too will regulators. New business models often spin off supportive ecosystems and upstart competitors that are important to the continued vitality of the technology industry. Regulators must ensure that the rules promote privacy while still providing the flexibility for companies to innovate.
Our survey also highlights some key considerations that seem to drive consumer purchasing decisions. For one, there is a growing level of consumer concern regarding privacy and security, particularly when using new services or technologies. Indeed, the virtue of ‘trust’ may soon become one of the biggest competitive advantages for products and services across almost all industry groups.
But the results also show that consumers are fixated on price, with many saying that it trumps all other considerations when selecting mobile operators, television options and internet service providers.
We believe these findings and the accompanying analysis demonstrates a continuing – but accelerated – trend towards greater integration of devices within the consumer lifestyle and a rapid evolution of business models for those that enable them.
We encourage you to contact your local KPMG member firm to discuss the implications of these trends on your business.
The enabling landline
While some pundits may believe that the traditional landline telephone is a thing of the past, our data shows that consumers are still committed to maintaining their landline connections. Globally, more than 80 percent of respondents indicated that they have a landline, with the highest concentration found in Asia Pacific (83 percent) and the lowest (76 percent) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
That being said, global rates did fall slightly overall (4 percent) from last year indicating the changing use of landlines in many regions. For example, 52 percent of respondents reported that they maintained their landline as a means of accessing the internet, while more than 10 percent also saw their landline as a channel for new services such as IPTV.
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KEY FINDINGS
- Over the past 12 months, around 4 percent of respondents seem to have eliminated their landlines but more than 80 percent still believe their landline is important.
- Although half (52 percent) of consumers maintain their landline for an internet connection, and just less than half (47 percent) maintain one out of habit.
- Almost a quarter of all respondents from Europe, the Middle East and Africa have no landline at all, versus 17 percent in Asia Pacific and 22 percent in the Americas.
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