Research

Half Of UK Children Have Shopped Online
New research from UK High Street bank Halifax reveals that over half of children between the ages of seven to sixteen years old have bought something over the Internet.
Boys are particularly keen on Web shopping with over 60% saying that they’ve bought items over the Internet.
The bank’s survey found that some 53% of young people are Internet shoppers (up 10% from 43% in 2004) with Scottish lads and lassies coming out as the keenest Web shoppers, with 80% buying items over the internet.
The East Midlands region came bottom of the Internet shopping league with only 36% of young people in the area shopping online.
Boys continue to buy more goods over the Internet than girls, with this year’s figures – 60% boys compared to just 46% of girls – continuing last year’s trend where the figures were 50% and 37% respectively.
Not surprisingly, age plays a big part in who gets to shop online with less than a third of seven to eleven year olds (29%) clicking and buying compared to almost three quarters of twelve to sixteen year olds (73%).
More than half of all kids interviewed believed that Internet shopping is, like, waaaaaay better to shopping on the high street with 61% finding it easier to buy online rather than in shops for certain items.
Music, DVDs and electronic equipment are the biggest attractions online with kids spending their hard-earned ~~extortion racket earnings~~, ~~petty theft cash~~, pocket money on CDs (45%), computer games/equipment (45%) and DVDs/videos (43%).
Halifax
11 July, 2005
Geeks Take Over The UK
Long shunned as hobby-obsessed lonely losers living in messy bedrooms with a dreadful taste in music, geeks, computer spods and sci-fi nuts have revealed themselves as a lucrative target for advertisers.
The Sci Fi Geekforce Report, a new study by the Sci-Fi channel service, reveals geeks to be high-spenders with the power to make or break billion-pound brands.
With Borg-like numbers (nearly 7 million in the UK), the collective buying power of geeks is making cappuccino-supping noo meedja types sit up and reach for their mood boards, with the survey estimating the “geek pound” to be worth a staggering £8.2bn (~€12bn ~ US$15~)a year.
The research, undertaken in association with marketing specialists TGI and media agency Rocket, also revealed that the geeks are predominantly ABC1 consumers, with some 33% of their number being female.
The bigwigs of Sci-Fi conducted the research to try and work out the popularity of the multi-billion dollar genre when it was supposedly the province of “solitary, unpopular individuals with niche interests and questionable personal hygiene habits.”
Dan Winter, head of press at Sci-Fi, declared himself “blown away” by the survey, which challenged many of the stereotypes.
For example, far from being long-term bedroom dwellers with only a death metal collection for company, the survey revealed geeks to be sociable animals, 52% more likely than the average person to have had four holidays in the last 12 months and 125% more likely to visit pubs, clubs and bars.
Nearly 40% of geeks believed their special interests make them attractive to the opposite sex, although we’re not convinced that, “Hi! Have you seen the latest Asus motherboard?” is a winning chat up line.
The bit that will get the advertisers moist in their strap lines is the fact that geeks are 90% more likely to be the first among their chums to invest in new products.
Martin Heaton Cooper, advertising sales director for Sci Fi, commented: “It’s clear that in a time of advertising overload and scepticism, the mainstream is turning to their new geek counterparts to help them make product decisions.”
The Sci Fi Geekforce Report is due to be released in July.
Sci-Fi
28 June, 2005
Legal UK Music Downloads Grow 75% In Twelve Months
According to a survey by Entertainment Media Research, UK legal digital music downloads have grown by a thumping great 75% in a year.
The 2005 Digital Music Survey also predicts that UK consumers will spend 60% more on buying music downloads in the next six months
Although 40% of UK music lovers are still grooving to music files illegally downloaded to their MP3 players and PCs, the survey found that 35% had bought legal downloads with a further 23% intending to start purchasing downloads soon.
Legal downloads are continuing to find favour with consumers, with over two thirds of illegal downloaders claiming they will download less in the future.
The survey revealed that the dwindling enthusiasm for dodgy downloading was due to user concerns about prosecution (44%), fear of viruses (29%) and inferior audio quality vs legal downloads (21%).
These findings are supported by the news that legal digital downloads have accounted for 8% of Coldplay’s recent album sales in the US – the biggest share for any new release to date.
Dutifully dissecting the digital demographic, we can reveal that the fear of getting into trouble with The Man worried 13-17 year olds (50%) and women (47%) the most, while 35-44 year olds (35%) and women (34%) were most concerned about the prospect of downloading infected and unauthorised files.
Spoddy, EQ-adjusting audio aficionados of the male variety were the most put off by the audio quality of the unauthorised tracks, with the difficulty in finding the exact right track particularly troubling music-obsessed blokes between 25-44.
The survey discovered that legal download demand is being fuelled by immediacy over price, with nearly two-thirds (63%) claiming immediate availability as being the key reason.
The ‘must-have-that-record-now’ ethos was most reflected by men in the 18-24 age group, with the price of downloads relative to CDs seen as a less important factor (43%).
Two fifths of those surveyed preferred digital downloads because they were only interested in one or two tracks, while 29% downloaded music to sample an album before purchase.
The survey revealed that 45% of legal downloaders buy current singles, unlike older consumers (45 years plus) who tended to know what tracks they want and were more likely to purchase 1-2 tracks from an album.
Russell Hart, Chief Executive, Entertainment Media Research, rummaged through the figures, mulled for a moment and then declared, “The findings indicate that the music industry is approaching a strategic milestone with the population of legal downloaders close to exceeding that of pirates.”
The survey was undertaken in association with law firm, Olswang, with their senior partner and Digital Lifestyles chum John Enser, commenting, “Clear deterrents to illegal downloading are emerging with fear of prosecution running high and close behind is the sense that unauthorised downloading is “not fair on the artists,” suggesting that the industry’s messages, led by the BPI, are being communicated effectively.”
Entertainment Media Research
20 June, 2005
IPSwitch Survey Reveals 93% Of Global e-mail Is Spam
According to a survey carried out over the Easter period by network management company, Ipswitch, a thumping 93% of all e-mail received was unwanted spam.
According to the company’s research, 44% of the spam surveyed was offering mortgage and loan ‘deals’, 18% of spam e-mails were offering various types of medication with 9% of pesky spam offering pirated software.
The survey also highlighted a new trend of e-mails attempting to ‘phish’ recipients’ banking details in lottery scams, with 7% of spam e-mails recorded being of this type, and a further 7% of the spam was made up of various pornographic offerings.
Naturally, the company had a shiny new product on hand to sort out the problem they’d just highlighted, the anti-spam Ipswitch Collaboration Suite 2.0.
Elsewhere, AOL’s anti-spam software backfired spectacularly in the hurricane-hit state of Florida, where emergency managers in Indian River County discovered that their email weather alerts were being tagged as spam.
After an unusually busy hurricane season, around 4,200 people signed up for the county’s e-mail alert service, offering quick alerts on hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather emergencies.
But not everyone was receiving the alerts, as AOL’s filters were trapping the emergency emails as spam.
Basil Dancy, a county computer software engineer, explained, “Because we send out mail in large numbers, it becomes a pattern for spam senders.”
The county is now working with AOL to fix the problem
Ipswitch
4 May, 2005
UK Students Peruse Porn And Study Online: Research
A government-backed study has revealed that more than one in 10 UK teenagers frequently use the Internet to look at “adult-only” Web sites.
Interviewed by the National Foundation for Economic Research, some 12% of 13 to 18-year-olds admitted that the quest for saucy titillation was one of their main reasons for going online.
However, homework was the most common reason for Internet use, with just over three-quarters using the Internet for research (and, in some cases, to plagiarise!)
The NFER study discovered that 52% used the Internet for Instant Messaging (IM) services and 36% logged on to shop for goods or services.
Some 18% looked up news and current affairs sites on the Web with 9% visiting discussion forums.
When it came to trusting the media, television was seen as the most trustworthy form of mass communication, with 48% trusting it completely or a lot.
Older students – already building up a healthy head of cynicism – were less convinced than younger ones of the level of honesty in the media, with newspapers faring worst overall, trusted by just 13%.
The eight-year NFER study was carried out on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills, and involved 6,400 pupils in 237 schools and 50 colleges in England.
National Foundation for Economic Research
Department for Education and Skills
19 April, 2005
PC Sales Up, As Dell Slows: Report Gartner
Worldwide shipments of PCs rose by 10.3 percent in the first quarter, with global shipments increasing to 50.4 million units, up from the 45.7 million PCs shifted during the same period a year ago.
The research by Gartner Inc echoes the general trend reported by its competitor International Data Corp, which reported a slightly higher growth figure of 10.9 percent.
Market leader Dell, saw its worldwide growth rate slip below 20 percent for the first time in 10 quarters, as US companies shelled out less than expected on PCs.
Dell’s 13.7 percent growth rate was still enough, however, to inch up its market share to 16.9 percent from 16.4 percent, with the company continuing to grow faster than competitors and the market in general.
The lack of sales in the US was made up by increased sales in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with small businesses in Western Europe being the biggest contributor to the boost in shipments in the EMEA region.
The report notes that lower vendor prices and the strong Euro to the dollar exchange rate helped open up small business wallets over Europe.
With US corporations appearing to be at the tail end of their usual four-year replacement cycle, the report speculates that sales probably won’t pickup dramatically until around 2008.
The vast bulk of PC sales in 2004 – 69 percent – were by corporations, educational institutions, small and midsize businesses and the government with consumers buying the rest.
Notebook sales globally continued to be very strong with customers tempting by falling prices.
In the US market – the biggest in the world – Apple shimmied up to fifth position, elbowing Toshiba down a place.
As we reported last week, Apple had a bumper year, with shipments rising by more than 45 percent, driven by iMac and PowerBook sales. This success is reflected in the company’s increased market share, up to 3.7 percent from 2.6 percent a year ago.
Dell remains the biggest PC vendor in the world followed by, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens and Acer.
In the US market, the big boys are Dell, HP, Gateway, IBM and Apple.
Karine Paoli, research director for IDC’s Personal Computing group, took a very deep breath and delivered this exceptionally long sentence : “If 2004 has been a strong year for the PC market, boosted by a rebound in commercial investment and portable adoption across EMEA, and if growth is expected to be softer this year, 2005 will remain buoyant, and highlight key transitions which will shape the market beyond 2006 – expansion of broadband and digital entertainment in homes, while businesses will look increasingly at mobility and wireless as part of their overall IT strategies.”
Gartner
International Data Corp report
18 April, 2005
Men Spend More Money on Video Games Than Music: Nielsen Report
A study by Nielsen Entertainment has revealed that men spend more money on video games than they do on music, adding weight to a growing belief that video games are displacing other forms of media for the notoriously fickle attentions of young men.
And it’s not just the kids fragging and gibbing away – the study also reveals that old ‘uns are getting down with da yoot on the consoles, with nearly a quarter of all gamers being over 40.
The random survey of 1,500 people was conducted by the interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment earlier this year and revealed that games now rank only behind DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital MP3 files and other ways of buying music.
We’ve no idea why this is relevant, but Nielsen also wanted to know how gaming split along lines of race, discovering that African-Americans and Hispanics spend more money on games each month than Caucasians. So now we know.
Naturally, advertisers are keen to cash in on the rising popularity of games, and are looking at ever more persuasive ways to bombard bedroom-bound, bunglesome boys with beguiling adverts (branded billboards in race games are already commonplace, as we’ve reported previously).
Never one to miss an opportunity, Nielsen has announced that they are working on a method to measure audience response to the in-game ads.
The study also discovered that 40% of US households have some kind of system dedicated to game play – whether a gaming PC, a console or a handheld device – with 23% mad-for-it gamers owning all three types of systems.
Like masturbation, older gamers prefer to do it alone, with 79% of men and 79% of women over the age of 45 spending most of their time playing alone.
Teenage girls tended to play more socially, while women aged 25-54 spent equal time playing alone and with others.
Overall, Nielsen reported that active gamers tend to spend just over 5 hours a week playing alone and 3 hours a week playing with people or online.
The US video game industry now rakes in US$10 billion (€7.7b/£5.3b) in annual revenue, roughly as much as US box office sales.
Nielsen Entertainment
11 April, 2005
MP3 Player Sales Set To Nearly Quadruple By 2009
Shipments of MP3 players soared by an enormous 116% in 2004, as hundreds of wallet-tempting products arrived in response to the phenomenal success of Apple iPod player, according to a survey by Market Intelligence firm, iSuppli.
Propelled by the soaring growth in demand for hard disk drive (HDD)-based products, iSuppli predicts shipments of MP3 players will nearly quadruple from 2004 to 2009.
The company forecasts that total MP3 player shipments will expand to 132 million units in 2009, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.1% from 36.8 million in 2004.
Although growth in 2005 is expected to slow from the frenzied buying levels of 2004, the MP3 market will continue to expand at a rapid rate, with iSuppli predicting unit shipments of MP3s rising to 57.7 million in 2005, up 57% from 36.8 million in 2004.
The super, soaraway success of the iPod echoed the public’s love affair with HDD-based MP3 players, with competitors moving quickly to offer products that aped the iPod’s use of a 1.8-inch HDD.
The iSuppli report also predicts that HDD-based MP3 player shipments will grow by a CAGR of 41.8% from 2004 to 2009, as compared to 22.9% for flash-based players.
Shipments are expected to 56.2 million units in 2009, up from 9.8 million in 2004, with HDD-based products accounting for nearly half of all MP3 shipments, at 42.6% in 2009 (up from only 26.6% in 2004).
The overall small form-factor HDD market had revenues of US$2.2 billion in 2004 and likely will rise to US$5.7 billion in 2008, generating a CAGR of more than 27 % over this period, iSuppli predicts.
The first vendor to ship 1.8-inch HDDs was Toshiba. Hitachi Global Storage Technology also has started shipping these drives and Western Digital Corp. (WDC) is expected to begin shipping them later in the year.
The research group said electronics producers stood to benefit from consumers’ willingness to pay more for “waaaaaay cool” products, something that Apple traditionally excels at and something that Sony clearly has in mind with its funky new line-up of Walkmans.
“Initially, (Apple’s) iPod was quite expensive, but the company reduced prices when the competition arrived. It also has aggressively introduced many generations of products in quick succession over the past four years,” iSuppli said.
But iSuppli warned companies not to try to squeeze too many features into their products: “The so-called ‘Swiss Army Knife’ approach has not succeeded in the MP3 market. Simple, elegant products that perform a few functions with easy-to-use interfaces have sold well in the marketplace, while the do-everything approach has failed.”
So, there goes my idea for a MP3 playing toaster then.
iSuppli
17 March, 2005
DVR Sales Rise, But VCRs Still Currently Dominant
DVRs may well be the hot product in the home entertainment industry, but dusty old video cassettes still rule the roost in the US.
A survey from iSuppli Corporation reports that DVRs are still a long way from challenging VCRs as the dominant method for recording TV in US households, but strong growth is predicted through to 2009
Only 3.8 million units were sold in 2003, but sales almost tripled in 2004 to 11.0 million units.
iSuppli estimates that sales will continue to grow, rising to 16.3 million by the end of this year and 45.5 million by 2009.
CENTRIS research also found a large increase in the DVR market last year, with the number of DVR units owned by US households rising 119% to 3.5 million from 2003 to 2004.
The company noted that the increases in DVR were mainly due to consumers taking advantage of units offered with digital broadcast satellite (DBS) and cable subscription services.
However, take up is still very low compared to many other consumer electronics products: just 6% of all US households have a DVR, compared to the 87% with a VCR, 60% with a DVD console and 12% with Video on Demand (VOD).
The squeeze is going to be on for PC-based DVR makers and standalone players like TiVo.
Despite extremely loyal user bases and a market share currently at about 40% (TiVo dominates this with a market share between 20% and 30%), JupiterResearch is predicting that this market share will decline to 20% by 2009, with cable and DBS DVRs accounting for the remaining 80%.
These companies can offer their products very cheaply (charging only a fee for renting the machine with no extra subscription cost) and introduce consumers to an affordable DVR experience.
In an effort to maintain their market share, TiVo is planning to branch out its services early next year by allowing subscribers to download movies from the Internet to their machines, along with a partnership with DVD rental company NetFlix.
DVR Dilemma (emarketer.com)
iSuppli
Jupiter Research
Centris
9 March, 2005
eContentplus €149m Digital Content Fund Get EU OK
The European Parliament has voted in favour of a new programme to promote the European digital content market, setting it a budget of €149m (~$194m, ~£103m) for the next three years.
The eContentplus programme aims to tackle the fragmentation of the European digital content market by supporting the development of multi-lingual content for innovative, online services.
“The internet offers a unique opportunity for content companies to outgrow their so far mostly national markets”, said Viviane Reding, the Commissioner responsible for Information Society and Media.
“The eContentplus programme will facilitate the production and distribution of online European content, thus stimulating innovation and creativity. At the same time it will help to preserve and share Europe’s cultural and linguistic identities and give them a more prominent place on the Internet,” Reding added.
The European Parliament voted in favour of the programme with only one amendment, which sets the budget of the programme at €149m for the period 2005-2008. Reding said the new budget was a substantial increase in comparison to the previous programme.
The eContentplus programme will concentrate on the parts of the digital content market where there is clear fragmentation in Europe, and where market forces have not been enough to drive growth.
It targets three areas – spatial or geographical data, educational material and cultural content.
In the case of geographical data such as post codes, planning and land registration details, fragmentation occurs because different member states collect and store data in different ways.
If the programme can reduce this fragmentation, it can open the way for new EU-wide information services using this data in areas such as transportation, navigation, emergency response and environmental management.
The eContentplus programme is part of a set of measures to boost innovation and creativity in the converging content market, including the MEDIAplus programme, and the modernisation of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, due later this year.
eContentplus
28 January, 2005