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Smartphones become the most popular device for keeping Brits connected
It was only a matter of time, but smartphones are now officially the UK's most popular internet-connected device. For the first time, more people are choosing smartphones to get online than laptops, according to stats published today in Ofcom's annual Communications Market Report. Smartphones are now considered the most important way of staying connected by 33 percent of Brits, with 30 percent preferring their laptops. That's a significant change from last year, when laptops were favoured by 40 percent of people and smartphones by only 22 percent. This coincides with smartphones also becoming the most widely owned web-connected device, with a presence in 66 percent of households compared with a 65 percent figure for laptops. Shipments of PCs have been declining for many years as mobile devices have become increasingly popular windows onto the web, and in the UK, tablet ownership is growing faster than anything else. In another first, Ofcom notes that over half of UK households (54 percent, to be exact) now have at least slate for the family to poke at.
Ofcom: Texting is more popular than talking
Ofcom's annual report into the communications habits of Britons has revealed that it's not just geeks who stare in annoyance when the phone rings. The general consumer is now abandoning voice calls is favor of texting in a big way, making five percent fewer calls than they did the previous year. The numbers also showed that on average, people send 50 texts a week, smartphone ownership was up 12 percent and tablet purchasing shot from 2 to 11 percent in a single year. The trend isn't slowing, either, given that a whopping 96 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds prefer SMS and Facebook to talking -- giving us hope that we'll soon be spared having to listen to that guy's conversation during our morning commute.
Report: UK couch potatoes switch to HD in growing numbers
According to Ofcom's latest Communications Market Report, 24 million HDTV sets were sold in the UK over the past 12 months, meaning about 20 percent of the population took home a new box in the past year. Yet despite watching nearly four hours of "telly" a day in 2009, in first 3 months of 2010, nearly a third of all households with internet access used on-demand catch-up services like the BBC's iPlayer, which represents an 8 percent growth over the same period last year. This data isn't all that surprising though considering the how much HD content has been made available in the UK over the last few years through free options such as Freeview HD, or premium services like Sky HD or Virgin Media. It's also still far behind US HDTV penetration, which stood at 33 percent back in 2009 and saw 5.5 million HDTVs sold during the 2008 / 2009 holiday season alone. That fact shouldn't stop electronics manufacturers from diving Scrooge McDuck style into their newly acquired money bags, or prevent newly minted British HD households from marveling at how ugly Jeremy Clarkson is in 1080p.
