Consumer Trends in Technology: Perspectives from Some of the Best in Our Industry

Breakout Session
Date: April 28, 2011
Round One: 9:00-10:30 a.m.

Panelists:

Around the world, today’s consumers view technology as an integral part of their lifestyles, just like fashion and transportation. In fact, when consumer spending categories are ranked, "consumer technology" is among the top three priorities.



In this Accenture Global Convergence Forum session "Consumer Trends in Technology: Perspectives from Some of the Best in Our Industry," the conversation was anchored on four major trends:


1. The global digital consumer in 2011

• Two billion Internet users, 824 million mobile Internet users and 611 million people on Facebook
• Growing role of mobile in Internet access (next 1B connected people)
• Global resilience of pay TV against the threat of Internet-delivered video
• Broadband going global with access, high speeds
• It’s a digital world, regionally and economically

2. Media consumption trends across three screens

• Increase in screen concurrency usage (22 percent mobile)
• Doubling of mobile screen time over two years
• TV time saturated with current TV offerings
• Growth in broader internet use across all regions
• Increases in media multitasking, especially younger generations
• Differences in mobile usage in developed and BRIC nations

3. Consumer technology trends and usage

• Corporate IT "hardware spend per employee" is declining
• Smartphones move from high end to majority of handsets sold
• Rise of tablets: the demise of the PC?
• By 2013, half of all TV’s sold worldwide will have built-in Internet
• Effect on CE of the "appification" of key CE categories: this decade’s convergence?
• Innovation sells to consumers, especially in BRIC countries
• Owning electronic brands perceived as the most innovative is important to the majority of consumers, and even more so in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries

4. Role of the Internet services/cloud

• Internet-delivered services are displacing traditional media consumption
• Social networks are changing the way users communicate
• Challenges in broadband capacity keeping pace with both wireline and wireless
• Cloud enables sheer scale and exponential growth: 65 million users gaming daily on Zynga (from zero a few months ago); 40,000 searches served per second (Google); 7,000 tweets per second (Twitter); 1.2 Million photos viewed per second (Facebook)
• Digital advertising discrepancies: $100 ad Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in US / Europe; $10-20 in Asia Pacific

Panelists shared their stories.

Rolv-Erik Spilling discussed Telenor’s continued expansion into some of the BRIC markets and the roll out of 4th generation wireless technologies like LTE. He elaborates various usage scenarios for consumers who will always prefer to go mobile and "cut the cord" whenever they can: "The challenge of a distributor like us is to provide the right technology for the right type of usage. LTE is a very efficient technology and we will roll it out aggressively in the Nordic region, but the rapid increase in video traffic on our network is a problem that we need to address."

Rodrigo Duclos talked about Net Serviços successful migration into the cloud and shared his perspective on building ultra-fast networks in developing countries: "Our challenge is that we have vast discrepancies between user groups in our country. Some with ARPUs of $200 per month will use sophisticated data services on expensive devices; many others have ARPUs of barely $10 a month. "The strategy of Net Serviços is to address the higher end of the market by selling high-speed cable access for TV and Internet, bundled with telephone services.

Keeping up with consumer preferences and trends is a challenge, even for leading organizations. Companies must track the hottest current and emerging markets (by geography, product, and application) for consumer technology. Keeping an eye on the leaders can also provide a competitive edge; for example, urban consumers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China have leapfrogged the mature market consumers in their use of new technology. Demand for mobile applications and next-generation technologies are on a strong growth trajectory, particularly in emerging markets. As consumer trends continuing to evolve, companies will strive to stay ahead of the game.


For more information:

• Finding Growth: Emergence of a New Consumer Technology Paradigm The 2011 Accenture Consumer Electronics Products and Services Usage Report