Millennials report high adoption and use of smartphone-controlled IoT
Nearly half of U.S. shoppers plan to use their smartphones to shop this holiday season, but most of them still haven’t bought into the use of mobile payments applications to pay for purchases, according to a new report from RootMetrics.
The report delves into the “primacy of mobile” in people’s lives, as RootMetrics called it in a blog entry. It is based on responses to a 17-question mobile survey from about 1,200 people; the survey was conducted in October 2018 and asked about the use of mobile in daily life, from how people most commonly use their smartphones to how mobile impacts their buying decisions.
“While mobile or online shopping has taken hold, especially among millennials, mobile pay is still confined to the sidelines,” RootMetrics concluded. Respondents had two major concerns: convenience and data security. About 45% of respondents said that they would use their mobile devices to shop online this holiday season. That figure was even higher — 52% — among Millennials. But 37% of respondents indicated that using mobile payment apps isn’t as convenient as credit cards or cash, and 36% said that they were worried that their data would not be secure. Among Millennials, 36% said that mobile payment apps aren’t convenient, but there was some glimmer of potential for a shift: 16% of Millennials that said they would avoid a retailer that didn’t have mobile payment capabilities.
Millennials are also leading adoption of internet of things-enabled offerings, according to the report. One in four Millennials reported owning an IoT device. While 21% of RootMetrics’ overall respondents said that they used their smartphones to operate an IoT device at least once a day, that figure was 25% among Millennials — and 39% said that they were remotely operating an IoT device at least once a week. In terms of gender breakdown, men are more likely to have used their smartphones to control an IoT device than women, RootMetrics found. However, more than 30% of respondents still reported that they felt no need for IoT devices.
Among other findings:
-47% of respondents said that they felt unsafe in a “dead zone” with no mobile reception, with about the same percentage saying that they blame carriers for such zones rather than their location or device.
-21% of survey respondents said that they watch online video on their smartphones for seven hours or more each week.
-31% of respondents said that they stream music or podcasts on their smartphones for 1-2 hours a week.
