It may be difficult to believe but the iPhone has only just celebrated its 10th birthday. In that short period the smartphone has wrought enormous changes in how most people live and work. Three Ireland recently undertook some research to establish just what those changes are and how big an impact the technology has had on Irish people.
The Three Connected Ireland Report is based on a survey of a representative sample of 1,000 smartphone users throughout the Republic of Ireland conducted by Amárach Research. Respondents were asked questions around three themes: connected life, connected business and the connected citizen.
“What we wanted to do was carry out some research to help us understand how Irish people use their smartphones,” says Eoin Mac Manus, business and enterprise director with Three. “We wanted to examine at it from three perspectives: connected life which looks at how people communicate and interact with other people; connected business relates to how people shop online, engage with brands and the innovations they want to see; the connected citizen explores how people interact with the public sector and extent to which they would be interested in using smartphones to access public services.”
Landline decline
One of the standout findings of the connected life theme was the decline in landline usage and indeed voice channels overall for initiating contact with other people. “A lot of people still have landlines,” Mac Manus notes. “The figure is 59 per cent overall but it falls to 45 per cent for 25-34 year olds. But virtually no one who has a smartphone uses the landline anymore. Of the 59 per cent who had one, just 3 per cent had used them to initiate contact with another person. That fell to 1 per cent for under 34s and 6 per cent for over 55s. Mobile phones were the preferred method for 37 per cent while 32 per cent used instant messaging.”
Another interesting result related to the value people placed on their mobile phone. “We asked people how much money they would want to give up their mobile for a month,” Mac Manus explains. “More than half of respondents would ask for more than €50 per month, with almost one-third (29 per cent) looking for over €100. A fifth of 16-24 year olds would want over €500, compared to less than a tenth or 7 per cent of those over 55 who would want the same amount for the loss of their smartphone. That is an interesting statistic; the older the respondents got the lower the value they put on it.”
Feel safe
Also of interest was the finding that 52 per cent of respondents said their smartphone made them feel safe. A possibly result showed that 81 per cent of 16 – 24 year olds and 80 per cent of 25-34 year olds say they would use their mobile to try to check out a person they didn’t know online before going on a date. Some 43 per cent of respondents aged over 55 would do the same, demonstrating how many people use their smartphone as a tool to enhance their personal safety.
The connected business element looked at the extent to which people are purchasing online on phone. “I would have thought that most shopping happened on laptops or desktops,” Mac Manus notes. “But 76 per cent of respondents use their smartphone to shop online once a month, with one in every two shopping two to four times a month. Mobile shopping is becoming more and more commonplace.”
On the other hand, only 42 per cent of respondents said they purchase from Irish websites. “This suggests there is a significant opportunity for Irish businesses to further exploit ecommerce business through potential customers’ smartphones,” Mac Manus adds.
The research also looked at the appetite for connected home-type services and found an area of opportunity as well. Six in 10 smartphone users say they would welcome a service that connected their home security system to the internet, controlled by their smartphone. Interestingly, smartphone users aged 55 and over would value this most.
When it came to the connected citizen the standout finding was the large number of people who would be willing to vote online in national and local elections using their mobile phone. Overall, 44 per cent would be happy to do so while less than 40 per cent would be unhappy. This suggests a very high level of trust in technology despite our unfortunate experience with e-voting some years ago.
Potholes
There is also strong demand across Ireland for the introduction of services that allow the use of smartphones to monitor security and feel safer. These include the ability to use mobile phones for to send photos of a suspicious person to the Garda Síochána, photos of potholes to local authorities, illegal dumping and so on.
“While the creative use of smartphones is already well established there is significant potential for growth in areas like online shopping,” Mac Manus concludes.
“It is still early days when it comes to digital governance in Ireland, but we have seen that there is huge appetite among Irish citizens for mobile public services. We will measure the evolution of these and other trends in future reports in as Irish businesses and public authorities seize the mobile opportunities that lie ahead.”