10 future trends for the tablet
Geoff Copps, research & analysis manager at Telegraph Media Group, offers a personal take on what the future holds for the tablet market in the UK…
Over the last year, at the Telegraph I’ve run numerous focus groups with consumers getting to grips with their new tablets. What I’ve seen is a steady evolution in usage, from clueless enthusiasm to serious adeptness. Two things remain clear. Firstly, the industry (mainly Apple, of course) has done a marvellous job at sustaining excitement. Secondly, the tablet market still has far to go.
Recent research with YouGov has given me a clearer view of the tablet market in the UK. And as well as revealing current patterns of behaviour, it has also offered a glimpse of the future. From this perspective, one sub-set of users has been especially important. There exist a proportion of iPad owners – consistently around 20% – whose usage is more advanced than the norm. Typically these folk are owners of high-memory 3G models living in multiple-tablet households. This ‘Future 20’ has been instrumental in shaping my own personal view of what will be 10 key future trends for the tablet:
1) Out-of-home tablet usage will suddenly take off in 2012.
It has become something of a truism that the tablet’s natural habitat is in the home, as recent studies from Google and others confirm.
However, our research shows that there remains a disjunction between tablet usage and reason for purchase. When asked why they bought an iPad, 71% cited the iPad’s ‘portability’. This ‘portability’ motive has yet to fully express itself. At present owners are understandably protective of their devices. But there will come a tipping point, when utility outweighs any lingering concerns.
Expect this moment to come around Christmas 2011, in the lead-up to the Olympics. When it does, tablet usage will surge in the busy commuter trains and coffee shops of the UK. We saw it with the smartphone, but the creative advertising possibilities are even greater for the tablet.
2) The tablet will become a potent tool for high-ticket purchases.
The tablet is still to realise fully its potential as a tool for online shopping. 39% of iPad shoppers use their device for researching and buying high-ticket items such as holidays. Yet the remaining 61% use their iPad only to research, reverting to their main laptop/desktop computer to complete the purchase. By contrast, the purchase of low-ticket items is widespread.
The issue here is merely one of confidence, of getting used to a new tool. As a platform with an unsurpassed ability to display products and services, the tablet has huge latent potential. In 2012, expect to see tablets in the hands of travel agents, estate agents, car salesmen and keen shoppers everywhere.
3) The typical tablet user of the future will be in their 50s.
Tablets are not a youth phenomenon. YouGov’s latest TabletTrack study reveals that the average age of an iPad owner is 45, with just 7% under the age of 25. There are as many aged 55 plus as aged under 35: there always has been, and always will be.
Once we get past our obsession with youth, the reasons behind this trend are obvious. Older consumers are more affluent, more time-rich, less miserly with their media spend, and increasingly adventurous when it comes to new technology. They are also less skittish in their attention, making the immersive reading experience of the tablet more suited to them than to younger consumers.
It is precisely these factors that will make the tablet audience an older one for the foreseeable future, as mid-adopters enter the market and grasp the device’s potential.
4) Male-dominated tablet ownership will end.
At present, the tablet ownership profile has a heavily male skew. This is no surprise: it’s a classic trait of early adopter markets. As tablets move wholeheartedly into the mainstream, expect to see a balancing of the gender profile. Females will succeed males. It’s inevitable (someone tell the Commonwealth legislators!)
5) Publisher brand loyalties will become more clearly demarcated.
In the noughties the SEO-driven growth of websites atomised online audiences, with many web users picking-and-choosing between publishers.
The tablet is reversing this process. Individual publisher brands are newly entrenching themselves in peoples’ lives. iPad users are now spending longer and longer with their favoured publishers’ content. Since getting an iPad, 37% have increased the total time they spend reading news content from their preferred newspaper publisher.
6) Video will become essential, not nice-to-have.
As countless reviewers and consumers have pointed out, the tablet is made for video content. 49% of iPad owners describe the viewing experience as ‘more immersive’ than their laptop/desktop.
Two factors will drive this trend towards the greater integration of video on tablet devices. Firstly, improvements to the digital infrastructure will make video streaming and downloading, especially out-of-home, less onerous. Secondly, there are signs that the big media owners are looking afresh at the potential of video. Publishers are integrating more and more video content into their apps. Yahoo! has been investing heavily in video content across key verticals in order to compete with its big rivals in the display market. Recent reports suggest Google is set to invest in professionally produced original programming for YouTube.
7) The tablet will complement, not replace, other platforms.
The tablet is, and always will be, primarily a complementary technology rather than a replacement technology. Fears of the demise of other platforms in the wake of the iPad are unfounded.
One reason for this is that tablets can increase media time rather than cannibalising it. Print media is an interesting case here, yet again demonstrating its remarkable resilience. The YouGov study shows that for iPad owners, iPad and print are now the twin access points for newspaper publishers’ content. While 38% of iPad owners say that their main method of accessing their preferred newspaper publishers is via the iPad, print comes a close second at 32% (laptop/desktop is third at 21%). Moreover, research from eDigital demonstrates how print retains its traditional strength as a ‘high concentration’ medium resistant to ‘multi-tasking’: just 6% of multi-taskers partner their iPad with their newspaper – 14 times fewer than with TV (85%) and 3 times fewer than with a laptop/desktop (19%). Print and iPad formats complement each other by snugly occupying different reading occasions.
8) ‘Sharing’ will switch from a single- to multiple-device phenomenon.
At present, 50% of iPad owners share the device with other family members. As you might expect, sharing with a partner is most widespread, but child ‘pester power’, a potent force beloved of supermarket retailers, is also a factor.
Yet these forms of behaviour look to be relatively short-term trends. The iPad is designed for single-person usage: a key feature is the ability to customise it with your own apps (and credit card information). Furthermore, at present 16% of iPad owners live in multiple-tablet households. With the increasing proliferation of tablets, this figure will exponentially increase.
In the future, ‘sharing’ will be a matter of device-to-device interactions, rather than huddling around a single screen. Expect such functionality to improve rapidly, as sharing becomes a battleground between tablet manufacturers in much the same way as it has amongst games console manufacturers.
9) The smartphone will at last find its true role.
Media commentators spent the late noughties excitedly predicting the total dominance of the smartphone in consumers’ lives. Let’s be honest, it’s never quite happened.
The arrival of the tablet has put this state of affairs into context. The smartphone’s shortfall was in part because it was being asked to fill a role that was beyond it – nothing short of satisfying all portable online usage. Tablets have now stepped in to satisfy the need for lean-back, considered and curated portable content. With the advent of the tablet, smartphone app developers can at last focus on what the platform is good at and was always destined to be: a convenient, dynamic and user-friendly tool for minute-by-minute information and decision-making. At the same time, advancements in the tablet market will spark further innovation in the smartphone market, with the two platforms in symbiosis generating richer content than ever before.
This is also good news for advertisers. A more sharply differentiated product means more differentiated, clearly articulated opportunities for reaching audiences as they go about their everyday lives.
10) More and more baffled toddlers across the nation will spend time ‘swiping’ at anything that looks like a screen.
No explanation required…
Unless otherwise stated, all figures in this article are taken from a YouGov/Telegraph study of 408 iPad owners in the UK. Online fieldwork was conducted between 18- 21 February 2011. The data was not weighted.