Recent Nielsen Report Proves Aussie Smartphone Usage Exceeds Desktop
The newest Nielsen Mobile Ratings Report in September revealed that Australians spend 40% more time on smartphones and tablets than they do on desktops. This has implications for advertisers, who should now have smartphones and tablets firmly in their sights as the number one channel for marketing investment. The research also revealed some interesting data regarding the difference between the average consumer attention span on mobile vs. desktop. More hours spent on mobile devices also means shorter, more frequent sessions interacting and viewing mobile content.
Back in October, we reviewed the findings and provided a summary to better portray how powerful this new research is. One of the most important findings sheds light on the increase of smartphone and tablet use, both with website and application interaction in Australia. The research also provides quality insight as to where people are viewing content, and what types of content are popular. Per the Nielsen report, Australian adults now spend 33 hours using smartphone apps on average, compared to less than four hours on browsers and web-based content monthly.
“Entertain, educate or excite… Entertainment, search and social categories are the largest in the Australian market and rival the U.S. market in terms of active reach,” Nielsen’s report stated. This data shows that the most popular types of content on mobile devices fall under the areas of social, video/movie content, messaging, gaming, finance, music, travel, and news. To follow these trends, successful advertising is advertising that will fit into each of these categories.
On average, consumers are engaging with entertaining content 10 hours per month, but that time is broken up into small, digestible sessions interacting with apps, web browsers, and other platforms for education and entertainment. Because mobile now dominates the way Australians receive content, consumers are visiting apps, websites, and networks more frequently, but for shorter lengths of time. While smartphone sessions are shorter than desktop sessions, they’re actually four times more frequent. Although ten-minute segments of smartphone use is a considerable amount of time to use various types of media, it is estimated that the frequency of these visits will only increase this year.
Although Australian smartphone usage has been driven by the craving for entertainment and information, mobile engagement still has room to grow this year. The report also revealed that Australian adults prefer mobile as means to get their news, instead of viewing information on the desktop. Another interesting finding was in terms of smartphone video consumption. Mobile video streaming is still dominated by Youtube, but Netflix championed the Video On Demand category. With the growth of both of these platforms, video content partnerships aren’t something to be overlooked in 2016.