Asian-Americans continue to be ahead of the curve when it comes to digital adoption. Per new data from Nielsen, 9 in 10 Asian-American TV households own an internet-connected TV device of some kind, compared to 76% of all US TV households.
Almost across the board, Asian-American households are above-average in digital technology ownership. Data from March 2020 shows that Asian-American households tend to have a higher than average rate of adoption of most digital devices and services. In particular, they are more likely than the average US population to own a computer (89% vs. 78%), tablet (72% vs. 63%), enabled Smart TV (65% vs. 52%) or other internet-connected device (62% vs. 47%).
While subscriptions to video-on-demand services continue to rise in the US, Asian-Americans are also more likely than average to subscribe to at least one of these services (84% vs. 74%).
On the other hand, Asian-American TV households are less likely than the average TV household to own a DVD/Blu-ray player (44% vs. 57%). And, as a group that spends the least amount of time with traditional TV, they also appear to be less likely to time-shift their traditional TV viewing, with only 42% owning a DVR (compared to 52% of all TV households).
As for gaming, Asian-American households are more likely than average to own a game console (46% vs. 40%). The report suggests that marketers perhaps could be served by trying to reach younger Asian-Americans (ages 18-34) through games and esports live streams.
Nielsen found that more than one-quarter of Asian-American gamers have watched a live-streamed e-sports tournament in the last three months, while 40% report spending more than 5 hours per week watching video game content. Overall, separate data indicates that spending on e-sports is forecast to exceed $340 million this year.
So, what games do Asian-American gamers gravitate towards? During Q1, although Action-Adventure games were the most popular (53%), Asian-American gamers over-indexed the general gamer population more in genres such as multiplayer online battle arena (184), survival (147), role-playing (139), and fighting (138).
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About the Data: Based on Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for 2020.