Fun is essential, even when standing in line, and a unique segment of game-players reach for their smartphones to play. This MetaFAQs profiles the sizable, if a casual, group of smartphone game-players, the 32% of online Americans using a smartphone to play games, detailing the critical demographic and behavioral factors distinctive from the average American online adult: age, gender, age within gender, employment status, household size, and life stage.
Mobile Phones TUP Lens
Smartphones have rapidly, although not completely, replaced feature phones. Smartphone users have expanded their range of activities with new uses while also increasingly migrating activities from computers and tablets. This TUP Highlights Report profiles smartphones – their market penetration, user demographic profile, regular activities, usage profile, key competitors, and purchase plans.
This TUP Highlights report includes the following sections: penetration of smartphones versus feature phones, smartphone brand share, top activities for smartphones, smartphone carrier share, smartphone usage profile, trends in technology ecosystems, major activities for a market segment, and the profile of smartphone users.
Communication patterns shift showing Zoom fatigue
Email continues to lead as the major communication activity across all devices. One-to-one video calls have grown rapidly. Worldwide and US employees are showing their Zoom/Webex fatigue, as both work and personal web-based group meetings have subsided.
Profile of Apple’s active base
Apple’s customers with many Apple OS devices (iPhones, iPads, Macs) have a higher than average socioeconomic profile and use of connected devices.
PCs for work before and through the pandemic [TUPdate]
Working remotely from a personal computer is not a new phenomenon—and it took hold long before the pandemic. Most home PCs have already been allocated to work-related activities, but the type of work differs, and has been shifting since the pandemic caused a larger variety of workers to stay at home.
This TUPdate reports on the penetration of home PCs among employees, which activities employees use their home PCs for, the prominence of work-provided PCs, the age of the home PC-using employee, and work-from-home status. It measures online adults in the US, Germany, UK, and Japan in 2019 and 2020.
Highlights: Printers
Who’s printing—and what are they printing? TUP Highlights include a broad and deep dive into an essential technology usage topic.
This highlights report focuses on printers, including: top printer brands, purchase plans for printers, top printing activities, profile of intensive printer users, ink use, trends in printing, major activities for a market segment, top printer form factors, and profile of printer user by activity. The research results showcase the TUP/Technology User Profile study, MetaFacts’ survey of a representative sample of online adults profiling the full market’s use of technology products and services during the wave of TUP/Technology User Profile 2021, which is TUP’s 39th annual. TUP Highlights typically also include results from previous waves of TUP.
A HomePod shuffle – a sound path of Apple’s expansion [TUPdate]
As voice-enabled speakers slowly creep into the mainstream, Apple’s HomePod is following suit. And since Apple leads in the broad totality of its customer relationships—its increasing emergence into the voice-enabled speaker market is one to watch.
This TUPdate reports on the size of Apple’s American HomePod user base between 2019 and 2020, as well as this base compared to other companies in that same time period. This report also considers voice-enabled wireless speaker use by age group and by number of Apple devices in the United States, as well as voice assistant usage by the number of Apple devices among online American adults in 2019 and 2020.
US adults with voice-enabled speakers by number of Apple devices [MetaFAQs]
When it comes to online adults who use Apple’s HomePod smart speaker, do birds of a feather flock together? The HomePod is tightly integrated with other Apple products, which benefits those who have other Apple devices.
This MetaFAQs reports on the number of adults in the US who actively use at least one Apple HomePod by the number of Apple devices they use – including iPhones, iPads, Macs, Watches, Apple TV set-top boxes, or HomePods. This MetaFAQs uses results from the TUP/Technology User Profile 2020, which is TUP’s 38th annual.
Broadened smart speaker usage in the US [MetaFAQs]
Are smart speakers going to set the tone for the future—or are they a niche tool? Smart speakers can be used for listening to music, news, phone calls, and for using voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri. This MetaFAQs reports on the number of online adults in the US that use at least one smart speaker by the speaker’s brand between 2019 and 2020.
Tablets dissolving into a split market [TUPdate]
Tablet use has been on the decline. American online adult tablet use has dropped from 60% in 2016 to 36% in 2020. But to what extent is this the case depending on country and types of device users? This TUPdate reports on online adults who actively use a tablet by country (US, Germany, and UK), year (2016-2020), age, hourly usage, household size, and top tablet activities. It also considers iPad use in comparison to overall tablet use and non-Apple tablet use, as well as the association between iPhone/Android smartphones and iPad/non-Apple tablet use.