Affluent Smartphone Owners Prove Active Device Users

February 24, 2014

This article is included in these additional categories:

Brand Metrics | Connected Device Comparisons | Digital | Global & Regional | Household Income | Mobile Phone

BBC-Affluent-Smartphone-Owners-Mobile-Usage-Feb2014A study from BBC World News and BBC.com/news indicates that in some respects, affluent smartphone owners are heavier users of their devices than the typical smartphone owner, particular when it comes to news consumption. The survey – of 6,000 smartphone owners across Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Sweden and the US – found that 39% of affluent respondents access the internet on their device at least once an hour, 18% higher than the rest of the respondents.

What’s more, 51% of affluent smartphone owners use their device for business, compared to 40% of the rest of the sample. (Affluents refers to those respondents in the highest 20% of income earners in each country. From hereon out, the “rest of the respondents” will be referred to as “general population” respondents or “mere common folk.”)

Compared to the mere common folk, affluent smartphone owners are also 15% more likely to agree that a brand needs to be on mobile if it wants to be “modern and dynamic,” with one-third believing that to be the case. And while mobile ads emerged as being twice as effective as desktop ads across brand metrics such as awareness, favorability and purchase intent for the general population respondents (remember: all respondents are smartphone owners), they turned out to be four times more effective among the affluent.

Continuing with the advertising theme, while mobile ads might prove more effective among affluent smartphone owners, they’re not necessarily more positive about them. The results suggest that the affluent respondents are as positive towards mobile advertising as they are towards advertising on desktops (19% and 18%, respectively). Some 41% are happy to see ads on mobile websites where the content is free.

Other Findings:

  • There was a 15% year-over-year increase in the proportion of affluent smartphone owners who would prefer to use their phone to read the news and a concurrent 9% increase in those who prefer to use their tablet. By contrast, there was a 17% decrease in the proportion who would prefer to use their desktop. Those are interesting trends, but no figures were provided comparing actual news access across those devices.
  • Compared to the general population respondent, affluent smartphone owners are 18% more likely to share their location to get relevant services.
  • Among affluent smartphone owners, news applications are the most commonly used mobile app type, while social networking apps are most frequently used by the average smartphone owner.
  • Affluent respondents were 15% more likely than the mere commoner to prefer mobile devices to desktops for accessing current affairs or breaking news and 28% more likely to prefer them for business or finance news.
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