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Smartphones Climbing, Handheld Consoles Falling

Posted January 31, 2012 by Steve Peterson

Smartphone usage is growing worldwide, as is tablet usage, but handheld gaming devices are losing popularity. The UK saw the biggest jump in smartphone usage last year, rising 15% from the beginning of the year to the end. More consumers now use a mobile phone of some kind than use a computer in all the countries surveyed. Smartphone penetration reached 45% in the UK, 38% in the US and France, 23% in Germany and 17% in Japan.

Google conducted surveys looking at the usage of various devices across 5 different countries in 2011, reaching 2000 consumers age 18+ in the US, UK, Germany, France, and Japan. The survey was in two phases, the first in January and February of 2011 and the second in September and October of 2011. The results are interesting, and suggestive of cultural differences between countries.

Key findings of interest to the gaming industry include:

Mobile phones (a feature phone or a smartphone) are used more often than a personal computer (desktop or laptop) across all five countries. In the US, 76% of consumers had either a feature phone or a smartphone, which was similar to the percentages in France and Germany (80% and 73%, respectively). Consumers in the UK apparently like mobile phones more, since 89% had one, and in Japan 96% of consumers had a mobile phone.

Smartphones are increasingly being picked over feature phones, and used more and more for Internet access. The US went from 31% smartphone adoption to 38% between the two phases, while the UK went from 30% to 45%. France went from 27% to 38%, while Germany showed a minor increase from 18% to 23%. Japan is apparently rapidly moving from feature phones to smartphones, going from 6% at the beginning of 2011 to 17% smartphone usage near the end of the year.

Tablets are rapidly becoming popular across all the countries, though the highest usage is in the US. Tablets in the US could be found among 11% of consumers, up from 9% early in the year. Note, however, the second phase number occurred before Apple's tremendous Q4 sales of over 15 million, and the Kindle Fire which went on sale in November. Other countries surveyed had a 6% penetration of tablets by the second phase, about half the US level.

Handheld gaming devices are about 3x as popular in Japan as in the US, UK, or France. (Remember, this survey only reached consumers age 18+, so kids with handheld gaming devices weren't covered.) Interestingly, ownership of handheld consoles dropped in all five countries surveyed between the first phase and the second phase. The US went from 15% to 13%; the UK went from 17% to 15%; France went from 14% to 10%; and Germany went from 7% to 6%. Japan stands out clearly, with 42% ownership in the first phase, dropping to 38% ownership by the second phase. This occurred despite the launch of the Nintendo 3DS after the first phase. Apparently, people in all of these countries are losing interest in handheld gaming devices, while at the same time smartphone adoption is zooming. While correlation is not the same as causation, it's hard not to look at those numbers and think that smartphones are directly hurting the handheld gaming market.

The demographics of smartphone users are apparently shifting as well. As you might expect, smartphone usage is low among those 55+ in all the countries surveyed, compared to the other age groups (roughly two-thirds). Older users are more common in the US than other countries (more than a third of smartphone users in the US are 45+, while only about a quarter of consumers that age in other countries own smartphones). The gender ratios, which were skewed male in the first phase, have swung more towards woman by the second phase (in the US, from a 47%/51% split to 49%/51% by the scond phase). The gender trend is very pronounced in Japan; in the first phase the split was 27%/73%, and by the second phase this had changed to 37%/63%.

Daily Internet usage on the computer is still more popular in most countries than accessing the Internet via a smartphone; for instance, in the US 69% of consumers used their smartphones to access the Internet daily, while 80% of the smartphone owners used their computers to access the Internet daily. The exception to this was, once again, Japan; 88% of smartphone owners accessed the Internet daily, while only 73% of those same owners used their computers. This may well be a vision of the future in the US and other countries, where Internet access via smartphone becomes more popular than via computer.

Steve Peterson has been in the game business for 30 years now, as a designer (co-designer of the Champions RPG among others) and a marketer (for various software companies), and a lecturer. You can read his thoughts on games and marketing at http://20thlevelmarketing.blogspot.com/, or follow him on Twitter @20thLevel.

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