Google releases new insights into mobile trends in NZ

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kiwis more mobile than ever before: Google releases new insights into mobile trends in New Zealand

Study shows every second New Zealander now owns a smartphone, but advertisers lag behind

Auckland, July 25, 2013 - Today, Google released new research that shows Kiwis are more mobile than ever before--and that smart advertisers need to follow their lead.

According to the study, conducted by IPSOS MediaCT, more than half (54%) of New Zealanders now own a smartphone, which puts Kiwis almost on par with the US (56%). While Australians are still ahead at 65%, Kiwis are catching up quickly with an increase of ten percentage points from a year earlier.

Kiwis are also engaging online more with mobile than their American counterparts: 42% of those Kiwis surveyed said that they’d spent more time online with their smartphone over the past six months than before, compared with just 34% of Americans. And with almost three in every four Kiwis (74%) loathe to leave home without their phone. Yet Google’s data shows that the majority of large advertisers do not yet have a mobile website, meaning they’re missing out on customers trying to visit them from smartphones.

“As consumers migrate to mobile, Kiwi businesses need to follow,” says Tony Keusgen, Country Manager for Google in New Zealand. “It all comes down to basics: know your customers and make sure they can find you on mobile devices. Otherwise you will keep missing out on sales leads.”

With smartphone ownership on the rise, mobile has continued to shape the way people shop. 74% of smartphone owners have researched a product or service from their device; of them, one third have made a purchase from their mobile. Others who start research on smartphones go on to complete purchases on a desktop (38%) and in-person (35%).

Products aren’t the only thing mobile-savvy Kiwis are searching for. Hungry hordes of New Zealanders turn to mobile to fill up on food and drink: 51% have searched for restaurant, bar or pub information. 42% conduct travel-related searches from mobile and 33% have house-hunted from a smartphones.

Google’s research shows that mobile is big for small business, too. Almost  nine out of 10 smartphone owners have searched for local businesses or services, while 87% have taken action as a result, such as contacting the business, visiting in person, or buying or booking something online. With one in five searching  for local information on a daily basis, the stakes are high: almost a million Kiwis are estimated to search for local information from smartphones every day.

“Big or small, national or local, there is no business in New Zealand which isn’t being transformed by mobile,”  says Keusgen. “If you’re an advertiser wondering when to develop your mobile strategy, the answer has to be: yesterday.”

From mobile to multiscreen
But Kiwis haven’t just gone mobile--they’ve gone dual--or even multiscreen. While almost one in three Kiwi smartphone owners would give up their TV before their mobile, a greater number prefer to use both at the same time: more than half of smartphone owners regularly use their smartphones while watching TV. 30% use their smartphone while watching movies, while two out of five do so while browsing the web on desktop. For anyone who’s done a quick search on mobile to see what other films the actor on screen has starred in, this probably won’t come as a surprise. But it’s a significant opportunity for smart marketers to create campaigns that work across multiple screens, especially considering that almost  six in  ten smartphone owners surveyed searched for a product or service from mobile after seeing an offline ad.

“We used to tell marketers to go mobile, but it’s clear that’s no longer enough. Kiwis are quickly becoming master multitaskers, and businesses need to start creating campaigns that work across all screens: desktop, tablet, mobile and TV,” Keusgen adds.

About this research
In partnership with Ipsos MediaCT, Google interviewed a total of 1,000 New Zealand online adults (18-64 years of age) who identified themselves as using a smartphone to access the Internet. The distribution is according to a national representative CATI Study. The interviews were conducted in Q1, 2013. Later this summer, Google will be making this research available in full to the public via a website that lets advertisers, developers, and marketers discover new mobile insights and create custom presentation-ready charts for free. Users can compare across countries, see year-on-year trends, or segment by demographics to understand specific smartphone usage patterns across 47 countries.

ENDS

© Scoop Media