Last updated April 12, 2019
In the modern world, computers may be our sages, and televisions may be our court jesters, but our lover is definitely the cell phone. Well, that’s the view of Bruce Friend, the President of the Ipsos OTX. Friend presented the findings of a new study, which suggested that more and more people are having an increasingly intimate relationship with their smartphones at the media leadership conference of TheWrap in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “It’s almost always turned on,” Friend says. “It never leaves you. You have an intimate relationship with it.”
Out of 4000 people surveyed by the study, 47 percent have a smartphone, a number that is expected to rise to 70 percent just by the end of next year. The study is an important one for entertainment companies, as the research shows that more and more people are using such devices to watch television shows and play games, with smartphone users spending up to 30 percent more than their peers on entertainment and media content.
Smartphone companies need not rest on their laurels, however, with the study also suggesting that tablets, while currently only having around 20 to 25 percent penetration, are expected to begin making in-roads on their market. “The tablet is rapidly becoming a companion or even a competitor to the smart-phone,” Friend notes. “Tablets reduce smart-phones as entertainment devices. The tablet will take the place of that.”