Foresight memo

Consumer behaviour: Web, Mobile and Social Networks

Nicolas Rolland December 2010 Source: 3 recent studies on the web and social networks by TNS-SOFRES (Digital Life survey carried out in September on 50,000 web users in 46 countries) Morgan Stanley (Mobile Internet Report) and IFOP (the French social networks observatory in October) + Comscore by media metrix

Recent studies on web usage confirm the predominant place of the internet in the day-to-day lives of consumers and reveal the disparity of practices and their implications in the different countries. In mature markets, where users have years of experience and where access is permanent and generalised, the web has become an everyday consumer product. Conversely, on high growth markets which have recently invested in web infrastructure, users have much more active use of the new forms of communication than the users in developed countries. The development of social networks is boosted by the transfer of computer to mobile appliances. Today 1 billion people have experienced or experience their first web connection via a mobile device (and not their PC) and the most recent Morgan Stanley study on the subject predicts that by 2013 people will access the internet more via their mobile than their PC. This trend is far more pronounced in emerging countries given the low level of landline availability. Mobinauts spend on average a little over 3 hours on social networks against a little over 2 hours on email. The use of social networks on mobile devices meets the increasing need to share information and instantaneous communication which is facilitated by the functionalities of these sites which are particularly adapted to itinerant use (format of messages, notifications, etc.). Internauts think that their use of social networks on mobile devices will increase more than on PCs and Facebook which is the most popular app on mobile believes that smartphones will, by the end of 2011, take over from the PC as the n 1 means of accessing social networks (which stands at around 30% today). In the US, for example, one quarter (26%) of internauts think that use will increase on PCs and 36% that it will increase on mobile devices. France, which is traditionally more conservative in terms of broadcasting private information, does not expect such development, even though it expects greater growth on mobile devices (23%) than on PCs (19%). Distinction between emerging and mature countries Online consumers in emerging countries have exceeded those in mature markets in terms of level of involvement in digital activities. This is the case in particular in Egypt (56%) and China (54%), which have high take-up rates which exceed those of Japan (20%), Denmark (25%) and Finland (26%), and indeed France (48%). Activities such as blogs and social networks are progressing very quickly in emerging markets. Four out of five internauts in China (88%) and half in Brazil (51%) have created their own blog or write on some forum or other, against only 32% in the US or France. In emerging countries and in particular in Asia, the internet is also becoming the most common means of posting photos online on social network or photoshare sites: 92% use in Thailand, 88% in Malaysia and 87% in Vietnam. By comparison, take-up in Japan and France are only 28% and 54% respectively. Contrasting use of email and social network sites. Globally, internauts spend more time on social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn than on email. In emerging markets, such as Latin America, the Middle East and China, the average time spent per week on social networks is over 5 hours, compared to 4 hours spent sending and receiving emails. The biggest users of social networks are to be found in Malaysia (9 hours a week), Russia and Israel (over 8 hours a week) and Turkey (nearly 8 hours).

In Russia, in August 2010, 34.5 million internet users (i.e. 74.5% of the online population) visited a social networking site at least once. National sites largely exceeded Facebook which, with 4.5 million visitors, is beaten hands down by Vkontakte.ru (27.8 million visitors) and Odnoklassniki (16.7 million visitors). However, Facebook did grow 376% last year. LATAM has the highest internet penetration in the world and Brazil is the biggest user with more than 67 millions of users (40% of the population). 80% of them are members of social networks and they spend 23% of their online activity on social network. The most popular one is Orkut (own and operate by Google and that is also one of most popular in India) with 28 millions of users compare with the 6 m illions of Facebook. Web users in mature markets are bigger email users: they spend around 4 hours on social networks and a little over 5 hours on email. This behaviour is reflected in France, with an average weekly use of under 4 hours on social networks and nearly 5 hours on email. As to the number of friends , Malaysians come first with an average of 233 friends connected on social networks, followed closely by Brazil with 231. Conversely, the Japanese have only 29 friends on average and Tanzanians 38. Paradoxically, Chinese users have an average of only 68 friends in spite of their high use of social networks. As for the French, they are to be found mostly in the lower range, with an average of 96 friends. The case of France Worldwide, internauts prefer the internet to other audiovisual media. France is an exception in this sense. Each day, 61% of internauts connect to the worldwide web. 54% of them watch television and 36% listen to the radio. In the scheme of things, France, which has now switched to broadband and especially ADSL, stands out. Even though internet access has become almost systematic for French internauts (France has the highest rate of daily connection rates at 92%), it is not a substitute for the daily use of traditional audiovisual media such as TV (57%) and radio (57%). 36% of the population have a count on a social network. Facebook once again tops the awareness ratings: 94% of internauts questioned had already heard of it. YouTube and Meetic are just as well known (92% and 86%) and are ahead of WindowLive, which is known to 85% of internauts. Copains d Avant ranks third (88%). WindowsLive, Facebook and Copains d Avant fully confirm their status as generalist social networking websites. They hold the top three spots in the ranking with all subcategories of the populations surveyed, whether women, students, retired people, management or shopfloor workers. The biggest progression is with Twitter with 17 percentage points (up to 80%)

Involvement in companies: the case of email A recent Gartner study shows that whilst email is and will for a long time remain the main form of communication between employees in a company, other channels are emerging as new generations of workers who are used to exchanging information via social networking sites come on board. Gartner highlights the new flexibility of these new forms of communication, which are so remote from the formalism of conventional emailing. As a result, social paradigms are in the process of converging between email, instant messaging and social networks, creating new forms of collaborative work. The estimates of the consultancy would suggest that 20% of employees will therefore be using social networking tools as the main form of communication in companies by 2014 rather than using email alone. Email is not being abandoned, but these new functions will supplement the palette of productivity tools available, with new generations of employees who are used to juggling with different communication channels.

World map of social networks Since June 2010 Facebook has stolen new important nations from local, previously strong, competitors (in 115 out of 132 countries analyzed it is market leader) especially in Europe.

(source: Vincos.it, Google trends)