How the pandemic is changing media habits

The pandemic has inevitably been a major influence on both media consumption and device ownership around the world; a new report highlights how consumer habits are changing. 

The annual Global Media Intelligence Report, from leading digital research organisation Insider Intelligence, in collaboration with Publicis Media-Starcom and GWI, is effectively a reference guide to consumers’ media use in 43 countries.

Takeaways

• Ownership of PCs and/or tablets continues to fall in many countries. Smartphones are already the primary – and sometimes the only – digital device owned by many internet users around the world. Different regions generally prioritise different devices, but there are national exceptions. 
• Smart TVs are gaining ground as high-quality in-home entertainment becomes a must-have. In all but a handful of countries, smart TV ownership rose by several percentage points year-over-year.
• Adoption of other smart products has accelerated. More people now own smartwatches, smart wristbands and smart home products; in the UK, for example, one in four internet users owned at least one smart home product in H1 2021; in the US, that share was 20.5%.
• In many countries, digital video has overtaken broadcast TV. In almost half of the countries surveyed, more than 75% of internet users had watched subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) in the prior month. But TV continues to reach more consumers worldwide than any other content-based medium. 
• The digital audio market is evolving, but radio hasn’t gone away. Broadcast radio’s reach shrank in many markets this year, but time spent with radio hardly changed since 2020.

WARC Data Premium clients can access the latest media consumption trends across 52 markets in a new interactive dashboard. If you do not currently have access, register your interest to find out more.