Ipsos study: The future is mobile

MANILA, Philippines—The new Media Atlas survey by market research firm, Ipsos, revealed that more and more Filipinos are becoming mobile, as smartphone usage rises and the use of phones for more than just calling and texting becomes more rampant.

Additionally, 31 percent of those surveyed said they couldn’t live without their mobile phones and 21 percent admitted that they plan to use their mobile phones more often, due in part for its multi-functionality.

Twenty-five-percent of respondents said they use their mobile phones as cameras. Another 23 percent said that, in addition to making calls, they also use their phones as MP3 or audio players, while 22 percent answered that they use their phones to play games on.

 “Smartphones have become like our own personal concierge,” said Steven Garton, executive director of Ipsos Business Insights.

 “We have also grown so dependent on our mobile phones that handwriting is slowly disappearing; words are now abbreviated by SMS and by tweets,” he added.

He also mentioned that the Philippines remains to be the SMS capital of the world.

‘The new normal’

“With the advent of technology that allows consumers to always be connected, we now have something we like to call ‘the new normal,” explained Garton.

As consumers nowadays want personalized information—information that they can have access to on their own time, whenever or whereever they may be—Garton has a piece of advice, especially for brand owners. “Engage your public in ways that capitalize on and reflect their expectations in a digital world,” he said.

And with the rise of social media, this is not a difficult task. The Media Atlas survey further revealed that 90 percent of respondents visit Facebook on a regular basis. Other top websites visited include Google and YouTube (69 percent), Yahoo (66 percent), Yahoo Mail (42 percent), and Twitter (15 percent).

As for the most sought after information on the web, 43 percent look online for news and music, 32 percent look online for information on sports, while only 31 percent are interested in information on entertainment and education.

 “But while we are living in a highly digital world, traditional print media is still in demand particularly for the upper class,” remarked Carole Sarthou, country manager for Ipsos.

 “The digital version is for the right here, right now. To get more details about a certain situation they are interested in, people still turn to newspapers,” she said.

“Each media just has to complement each other; there has to be consistency in the type of information that is made available to the public,” she concluded.