Digital Trends Quarterly - UK - March 2019
Overview
 
Despite being a saturated market where people are holding onto their ever-more sophisticated handsets for longer periods of time, the smartphone category remains livelier than most in terms of recent purchasing, and saw a welcome bump over the Christmas period. Moreover, the announcement of foldable phones from Samsung and Huawei in February, with the former’s due to market in April, is indisputably the most exciting jump forward in innovation for years. High launch prices mean that only a small minority of adventurous and wealthy enthusiasts will buy into the market this year, but other manufacturers are waiting to jump in and increase competition once they have been able to get a feel for demand.

Meanwhile, we are seeing continued growth in streaming on both smartphones and tablets, which bodes well for the latter, which have been struggling for sales for the last couple of years. Elsewhere, VR is lagging behind other emerging technologies in terms of stimulating mass-market interest and needs to encourage early adopters to spread the word more to help it catch on.

Mintel’s special focus on online discussion and interactions this quarter finds that although people are increasingly concerned about the amount of time they are spending online, the overwhelming view of the impact of technology on their lives is positive. Online interactions around shared interests can help spur real-life ones too, with TV food and politics amongst the subjects most likely to get people talking.

Covered in this Report
This Report covers ownership of and intentions to purchase consumer technology products (eg televisions, laptops, and smartphones), as well as the methods that people have used to connect to the internet in the last three months.

Mintel’s Digital Trends Report series examines what types of activities consumers have performed online using PCs (laptops or desktops), tablets and smartphones. In each quarter, we focus on a different aspect of consumer behaviour, and this edition focuses on social and media-related activities including use of social networks and messaging services, online news and video consumption, photo and video sharing and casual gaming.

In addition, every edition contains a Special Focus section, where we address a particular aspect of the consumer technology market. This edition’s Special Focus is on the online interactions people are having around areas of shared interest and their attitudes to online interactions in general.