Zenith Study: Average Consumer To Spend 33 Days Online This Year

People around the world will spend an average of 800 hours using the mobile internet this year – that’s equivalent to 33 days without sleep or pause, according to Zenith’s Media Consumption Forecasts, published today.

By 2021 the total will rise to 930 hours, or 39 full days.

This is the fifth edition of the Media Consumption Forecasts, which surveys changing patterns of media consumption since 2011, and forecasts how the amount of time people allocate to different media will change between 2019 and 2021.

Across the 57 countries that were surveyed, people will spend a collective 3.8 trillion hours using the mobile internet this year, rising to 4.5 trillion hours in 2021.

Since the first edition was published in 2015, the average amount of time people around the world spend accessing the mobile internet has risen from 80 to 130 minutes a day, at an average rate of 13 per cent a year, spurred on by the availability of affordable smartphones, faster connections, better screens and app innovation.

Growth is slowing, though, now that most people in the developed world who want a mobile device have one, and ownership is becoming common in developing markets. We forecast an average of 8 per cent annual growth in time spent on mobile internet devices between 2018 and 2021.

We expect mobile internet use to account for 31 per cent of global media consumption in 2021, up from 27 per cent this year.

In Australia, on average, people spent an additional ten minutes per day using the internet whether at home, school, work or elsewhere.

This growth appears to be due to the rapid expansion of mobile device usage.

While Australia is ranked sixth in the world for mobile speeds, it is also renowned for poor home broadband speeds, ranked 60th in the world according to a recent Ookla Speedtest.

Zenith CIO Anthony Ellis said: “It seems that this disparity in connection speed is encouraging more individuals to consume content via their smartphones.

“Nonetheless, we expect internet consumption to accelerate over the next couple of years, particularly as broadband speeds improve and fixed broadband subscriptions are allowed to develop beyond their current level of penetration of 75 per cent.”

Television remains the most popular global medium

Television remains the biggest medium globally, attracting 167 minutes of viewing each day in 2019.

Television viewing is predicted to fall slowly to 165 minutes a day in 2021.

Television will remain the world’s favourite medium throughout our forecasts, accounting for 33 per cent of all media consumption in 2021, down from 35 per cent in 2019.

In Australia, as the range of smart televisions expands, pricing will become more competitive and thus more accessible.

Similarly, content and subscription aggregators like Fetch have been performing well, and Ellis believes that all signs point to their continued success.

“The impact of these technologies is that while consumers may end up spending a similar amount of time in front of their TV screens, the choice of content they’re able to watch will have grown significantly.

“Never has the old adage ‘so much choice, so little time’ rung so true,” Ellis said.

Meanwhile globally, the mobile internet has eaten into the amount of time people spend with some – but not all – rival media.

Between 2014 and 2019, the average amount of time spent reading newspapers has fallen from 17 minutes a day to 11, while time spent reading magazines has fallen from eight to four, and time spent watching television has fallen from 171 to 167.

Desktop internet use has also fallen, from 47 minutes a day to 40.

However, consumers’ appetite for radio and cinema has remained robust, with radio listening rising from 53 minutes to 55, and time spent at the cinema rising from 1.8 minutes to 3.0 minutes a day on average, driven by a boom in cinema attendance in China.

Note that in this report, time spent with newspapers and magazines only includes time with the printed editions of these publications, while time spent with television and radio only includes time with traditionally broadcast channels and stations.

Time spent with online platforms owned by publishers or broadcasters is counted as internet consumption.

Total media consumption rises to eight hours a day

The mobile internet has expanded the amount of time people spend consuming media: consumers will spend an average of 479 minutes a day with media this year, up from 420 minutes in 2013.

By 2021 we expect the average consumer to spend 495 minutes a day consuming media.

Zenith head of forecasting Jonathan Barnard said: “Mobile internet technology has expanded both the amount of time people spend with media, and what counts as media.”

“Media now means comparing prices on the high street, sharing jokes with friends and booking your next holiday, opening up new opportunities for brands to connect with consumers.”

Zenith global brand president Matt James said: “To take advantage of this abundance of media, brands need to communicate with consumers in the environments that best matches their values, and at the times when consumers are ready to move along the path to purchase.”

“This requires investing in talent and technology to unlock the value of data and create personal brand experiences.”