tns
Latest
Mobile Life 2011 survey covers phone use habits and future trends
For the last six years, global research firm TNS has been compiling extensive reports on the usage habits of mobile phone users. Today the company announced the release of its latest work, TNS Mobile Life 2011. Based on a staggering amount of effort -- 25,000 hours of interviews with over 34,000 respondents covering 43 countries -- there's a ton of interesting data here on all sorts of things wrapped up in some attractive Flash graphics to allow you to slice and dice the data. For example, the above graph shows how various phone use cases -- email, social networking, internet and so on -- varies by time of day across different countries. The survey shows strong brand loyalty amongst both iOS and Android users, with 51 percent and 49 percent of respondents, respectively, "very likely" to stick with their current platform in the future. I suspect this is because of the lock-in effect of the two platforms' strong app store offerings. Once you've bought a few hundred apps through iTunes or the Android Market, you have a few hundred reasons not to want to switch platforms. Indeed, a quarter of all survey participants said that content and apps for their devices are a key part of choosing a platform. For Windows and Symbian those customer loyalty numbers were only 30 percent and 31 percent, respectively. It might be that Nokia's deal with Microsoft to switch to Windows Phone 7 might not help it as much as it hopes, although it's likely that the relatively poor customer satisfaction in the Windows camp reflects more on previous versions of Windows Mobile (which, as an owner of one, I can confirm stink out loud) than they do on the shiny new WP7. Looking to the future, the survey sees that as usage of SMS and still photography will reach market saturation, and customer purchasing decisions will be increasingly driven by advanced features, such as access to social networks, live TV viewing and photo and video uploading, particularly in emerging markets. Indeed, the survey paints a picture of a tremendous, untapped hunger for advanced smartphones in these emerging markets, which it defines as 24 countries including most of South America, most of Africa, China and India, amongst others. There's far more data here than I can hope to cover in this post -- if (like me) you're a data nerd, I recommend you take a long look for yourself.
Study: Americans spent $25.3 billion on games in 2009
US consumers of those newfangled video games apparently spent $25.3 billion on them in 2009, according to the Today's Gamers Survey by Newzoo and TNS. If this study seems vaguely familiar, it's likely because there was a similar report released on massively multiplayer games a couple months ago, which found that Americans spent $3.8 billion on MMOs during 2009. Typically, data we see comes from retailers, but this survey was conducted using 13,000 respondents, aged 8 and up, who were "carefully selected to represent each individual country's demographic profile." As VentureBeat notes, the numbers in the Newzoo report are quite different than NPD's report on 2009 sales -- by about $5 billion. Unlike NPD, the Newzoo study also reports data on several European nations. A free summary [PDF link] of the report is available on GamesIndustry.com, while the full report will cost you €299 ($384). We wonder how much US consumers spent on research reports in 2009 ... [Via VentureBeat]
One-fifth of US game spending goes to MMOs and game portals
It's no secret that MMOs have started to see a larger and larger share of the market, but the actual amount is always a difficult number to pin down. Gamasutra recently reported on a study by TNS and Gamesindustry.com, a pair of market research firms, which found that about 20% of all US game spending goes to either MMOs or online game portals. That's a fifth of all spending in the country, and with the amount of overall spending in the US that's a rather significant figure. Of course, MMOs are still small fry compared to, say, the console budget, which dominates at nearly three-fifths of the overall spending. However, it's worth considering that MMO spending is frequently going to be a $15 monthly subscription rather than a $50 one-time purchase -- a significant disparity in terms of overall budget. It's also interesting to note that MMOs, once a small subset of the overall PC gaming market, are gaining ground as a market demographic unto themselves. The full report can be found here, with further information on the methodology of the study and the preferred payment methods of the respondents.
DirecTV and TNS partner up to analyze "second-by-second" viewing habits
Listen up, DirecTV users -- select TiVo customers aren't the only ones having their viewing habits inspected with a microscope. Apparently, your satellite provider has just teamed up with TNS Media Research to find a willing audience (read: opt-in participants only) of 100,000 folks that will allow the two to closely analyze exactly what they do when camped in front of the tube. More specifically, TNS is hoping to launch DIRECTView later this year, which will measure "the total viewing [of the aforementioned group], including the live and time-shifted (DVR) viewing of programs and commercials at a second-by-second interval." According to Eric Shanks, EVP of DirecTV Entertainment, the goal here "is to develop a panel capability that will provide important insights across its advertising platform," which will "in turn provide its advertisers and programming partners [with] an unparalleled level of measurement accuracy and accountability." It's also pretty creepy, but unfortunately, not at all surprising.
