Ofcom has produced a new report, The Communications Market Report: United Kingdom, It is the ninth edition they have produced, which contains data and analysis on broadcast television and radio, fixed and mobile telephony, and internet take-up and consumption in the UK.
Whilst the highlight of the report was that texting has overtaken calling, the average UK consumer now send 50 texts per week, which has more than doubled in four years, there are some other interesting facts that have come out of the report that digital marketers should be aware of.
10 facts UK digital marketers should be aware of:
1. The UK is digital enabled – 80% of UK homes now have internet access, with 76% of UK households having broadband access.
2. Internet enabled device ownership increasing – Smartphone ownership rose to 39% of UK adults in Q1 2012, Tablet ownership rose to 11% of UK households and Smart TV ownership rose to 5% of UK TV households.
3. More time spent on social networks – 16-24 year olds say that they are text messaging and social networking more than ever before. Almost three-quarters (73%) of 16-24 year olds use social networking to communicate with friends and family on a daily basis.
4. Internet Advertising has the highest advertising spend – Declining print advertising last year and a growth of 17% in internet advertising, makes it the largest category of advertising expenditure. Search and Display continues to drive this growth, while online video advertising has continued to double since 2008 and mobile advertising spend is also increasing.
5. Ecommerce continues to grow– In the past three years e-commerce has grown at ten times the rate of other retail sales. Amazon (18.5 million unique visitors in March 2012) and eBay (17.1 million) are the most popular shopping sites.
6. Google Search, Facebook and YouTube are the most popular sites on the web – In March 2012, Google Search, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Amazon were the most popular sites accessed on desktop and laptop computers by number of unique visitors, within the respective categories.
7. More time being spent online watching videos – YouTube remains the most popular video-sharing site. Users are spending longer periods watching online video and men are spending three times as much as women watching online video.
8. The rise of the ‘robo-shoppers’– Robo stands for research offline buy online. More than half (57%) of smartphone users claim to have used their handset in some way when out shopping. This includes simple things such as taking a photo of a product (31%), to making online price comparisons (25%), acquiring more product information by scanning bar codes (21%), reading product reviews online (19%), and researching product features (19%).
9. Tablets and e-readers are mainly used at home – Despite being portable the majority of tablet and e-reader owners mainly use their devices at home. Most people use tablets while doing another task, 68% people said they their tablet whilst watching TV.
10. Local is slowly emerging – Hyperlocal websites are growing in consumption, highlighting the important of ‘local’, the need for local listings, maps etc.
