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The ubiquity of smartphones and their influence on tech adoption cannot be overstated. More members of the youngest generations — Generation Z and Generation Alpha — have grown up with phones or tablets in their hands than any generation before them. The early exposure to these devices goes a long way to framing their relationships with technology.
This blog post presents the findings of a survey conducted by 451 Research from S&P Global Energy Horizons, which asked US adult consumers about their device ownership and buying plans.
Key takeaways from the survey
Smartphones set the standard. Overall, a staggering 96% of consumers own a smartphone. As a result, smartphones have become the anchor device for many product ecosystems, especially for Apple and Samsung. Phones are now necessary components to the smooth integration with other products, like smartwatches, and have forced almost every web-based service to operate efficiently in a mobile environment.
Smartphone owners are more predisposed to enjoy digital experiences. Almost one-third (32%) of smartphone owners say digital technologies are essential to their daily lifestyle compared with only 6% of non-smartphone owners. Smartphone owners are also more likely to try new products before others (18% versus 6%) and pay more for innovative new products (19% versus 5%). These perspectives bleed into how consumers interact with a variety of other consumer technologies.
Wearable tech adoption depends greatly on smartphone ownership. Overall, smartphone owners are three times more likely to own at least one piece of wearable technology than non-smartphone owners (49% versus 16%). Smartwatches (24% versus 3%), smart earbuds (19% versus 5%) and smart headphones (12% versus 5%) are among the device types that stand out the most. This is understandable, as these are some of the main devices that need to be paired with smartphones to take advantage of all their features. Interestingly, fitness trackers (16% versus 4%) are also more heavily favored by consumers who also own smartphones, yet they’re not as reliant on smartphones when it comes to unlocking functionality.
Use of streaming devices also favors smartphone owners. Overall, 83% of smartphone owners use a device for streaming video content compared with 53% of non-owners. It would be easy to chalk that difference up to the 45% of smartphone owners who use their devices to stream video content. However, across almost every type of streaming device, smartphone owners have higher usage rates.
The largest discrepancies are for laptops/desktops (31% versus 23%), Roku (25% versus 13%), smart TVs (37% versus 16%), tablets (22% versus 11%) and video game consoles (13% versus 4%).
Interestingly, none of these devices relies on smartphones for functionality. Rather, using smartphones seems to lead to a broader engagement with digital technologies.
Traditional computing not impacted by smartphone ownership. The gap between smartphone owners and nonowners in the use of laptops/desktops for streaming gets even more interesting when we look at it a different way. Overall ownership of laptops and desktops appears least impacted by smartphone ownership. Specifically, desktop ownership is more likely among non-smartphone owners (50% versus 38%), while laptops have one of the narrowest margins in favor of smartphone owners (65% versus 57%). Smartphone owners are more likely to engage in mobile computing, which is likely one of the reasons why they have a clear preference for laptops over desktops.
Tablets are still a symbol of mobile computing. Speaking of mobile computing, tablet usage is also stronger among smartphone owners (53%) versus nonowners (36%). While tablets in general have lost some of their luster and are not the hot commodities they once were, they do stand out as an extension of the functionality smartphone owners are accustomed to. In fact, 30% of smartphone owners have their tablets connected to a mobile data plan compared with just 19% of non-smartphone owners.
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