NEW YORK, Nov.

13, 2018 — With an estimated 270 million Americans viewing

their smartphones about 14 billion times per day, the smartphone continues to reign
supreme as consumers’ preferred device for online actions, as well as for controlling
and monitoring many daily activities, according to Deloitte’s U.S. edition of the
“2018 global mobile consumer survey.” This year smartphone penetration rose to 85
percent, up 3 percent from 2017, with the strongest growth among U.S. consumers
aged 45 and over.

American consumers are now viewing their phones an average of 52 times

daily, with 39 percent of consumers believing they use their smartphones
too much. In fact, 60 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds admit to smartphone
overuse, the highest level of any age group. However, 63 percent of the
respondents reported trying to limit their smartphone usage, roughly half succeeding
in cutting back. Smartphones also are helping blur the lines between work and
leisure with 70 percent of respondents using personal smartphones at least
occasionally for after-hours work.

The survey also notes growing consumer interest in voice-assisted technologies,

which are poised to be one of the next “big things” in human-computer interaction,
as well as interest in certain Internet of Things (IoT) applications and devices, and
the introduction of fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies.

“This year’s survey really advances the story of smartphones as the true center of
our lives, both inside and outside the home,” said Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and
U.S. Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment sector leader, Deloitte LLP. “While
interest in other mobile technologies such as voice-assistance and IoT is there, the
smartphone remains the go-to device for consumers, enabling them to do anything
they desire: communicate, work, socialize, consume entertainment, stay fit or take
care of things at home.”

Inflection point for tablets and wearables

While smartphone penetration continued to increase this year, the same was not
true for tablets. They suffered the largest year-over-year decline in market
penetration of any device category, per the survey, slipping 5 percent (from 62
percent to 57 percent) and seem to now have more specific uses among different
age groups.

 Smartphones are the fastest growing of 10 device categories. Their 3 percent

growth rate is triple that of the one other device category with positive growth,
smartwatches, now used by 14 percent of Americans.

 Trailing smartphones in consumer penetration are laptops (77 percent), desktop

computers (57 percent), tablets (57 percent), fitness bands (21 percent), virtual
reality (VR) headsets (8 percent) and smartwatches (14 percent).

 In daily usage, tablets (52 percent) now rank behind smartphones (94 percent),
laptops (74 percent), desktop computers (71 percent), smartwatches (67
percent) and fitness bands (60 percent).

 Daily usage for wearables, however, is growing for owners of fitness bands (60
percent versus 53 percent in 2017) and smartwatches (67 percent versus 62
percent in 2017).
Consumers concerned about data privacy and security
Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of Americans worry about keeping their
personal data private.

 Eighty percent of consumers have concerns about companies using, storing and
sharing their personal data with third parties.

 Eighty-five percent of respondents now believe that companies with which they
interact online use their personal data “all” or “most of” the time.

 Consumers are 14 percent less likely this year to share their photos and address
books with companies they interact with online, marking a substantial change in
behavior from last year.

 With regard to mobile in-store payments (mPayments), only 31 percent of

respondents indicated they have ever used their mobile device to make an in-
store payment, and only 14 percent do so on a weekly basis. While there are
several reasons for the tepid adoption, security concerns (42 percent) and lack
of perceived benefits (42 percent) were cited as main reasons by respondents.

Voice assistant technologies “make noise” with consumers

Voice control’s adoption curve suggests it will be the next big thing in human
computer interaction, after touch.

 Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents have used the voice assistant on
their smartphones, up 11 percent from last year.

 Nearly half (46 percent) have used the voice assistant within the last week, if
not in the last day.

 Market penetration of voice-assisted speakers has nearly doubled over the past
year (growing from 12 to 20 percent).

 Sixty-nine percent of respondents who own voice-assisted speakers report using

their voice-assistance capabilities weekly, and 47 percent do so daily.

IoT intrigues, but will consumers pay?

Connected devices are everywhere, but consumers’ interest in them is mixed. Plus,
for the first time in recent years, we saw a dip in consumers’ interest in self-driving
cars.

 Eighty-five percent of respondents expressed interest in the connected car and

73 percent expressed interest in the connected house.

 However, fewer than 50 percent of respondents are willing to pay for any
connected car service (route tracking, maintenance, traffic updates, etc.) —
down an average of approximately 4 percent across the board from last year.

 While survey respondents view home-control (55 percent) and home-monitoring

solutions (53 percent) as having the greatest potential value, only slightly over
half say they are willing to pay for connected home products and services.

 The number of respondents who would buy a self-driving car dropped 6 percent
from 2017 (24 percent).
 Additionally, the number of respondents who would ride in someone else’s self-
driving car was also down 8 percent from 2017 (41 percent).

Consumers eager for 5G networks and devices

As people demand more from their devices, consumers want faster data speeds,
lower latency, improved responsiveness and better performance among connected
devices. That bodes well for 5G’s enormous capacity networks and smartphones.

 Overall, 60 percent of respondents indicated that 5G is either “fairly” (34

percent) or “very” (26 percent) important to them now, compared with 55
percent who felt that way a year ago.

 That interest rose across all age groups over the past year — even among those
aged 65 and over, who saw a 9 percent jump to 31 percent.

 The perceived importance of 5G is highest among the 25–34 age group (77
percent believe it’s either fairly or very important).

 Interestingly, 29 percent of respondents said their current 4G/LTE network

speed at home is either a little or much faster than their home Wi-Fi, compared
to 27 percent in 2017.

“This year’s survey confirms that while smartphones are becoming the nerve center
of our homes, our businesses, our families and our lives — consumers are craving
more speed and responsiveness as their usage patterns mature,” said Mic Locker,
managing director in Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Technology, Media &
Telecommunications industry practice. “It will be interesting to watch the availability
of 5G networks and 5G-enabled smartphones over the next year to see if
consumers’ yearning for better performance is satisfied.”

Industry outlook
While smartphone usage and behaviors are maturing, the report cites several trends
that may be of interest to telecommunications carriers including:

 The average age of smartphones is increasing with more than 80 percent of

smartphone owners purchasing their latest phone within the last two years.
Younger consumers have a relatively faster replacement cycle.

 Notably, we are also seeing an increase in the numbers of respondents who

have a second phone, as more than a third of those surveyed (34 percent)
responded that they kept their previous phone as a spare when purchasing a
new device.

 Approximately two in three smartphone owners purchased their current phone

in a walk-in store, and one in three purchased it online, which is fairly consistent
with past surveys.

 Most in-store purchases are made at carrier stores (69 percent, up from 67
percent last year), and most online purchases are made from carrier websites
(50 percent this year, up from 47 percent).

 Online sales from phone manufacturer websites almost doubled, albeit from a
base of 8 percent last year to 14 percent this year.
Online reviews and impulse buying
behavior: the role of browsing and
impulsiveness
Author(s):
Kem Z.K. Zhang, (School of Management, University of Science and
Technology of China, Hefei, China)

...Show all authors

Abstract:
Purpose
Online reviews have shown important information that affects consumers’
online shopping behavior. However, little research has examined how they
may influence consumers’ online impulse buying behavior. The purpose of
this paper is to bring theoretical and empirical connections between them.

Design/methodology/approach
The framework of this study was tested on three popular online group
shopping websites in China (ju.taobao.com, dianping.com, and
meituan.com). An online survey with 315 participants who had experience
using these websites was recruited to verify the effects of consumers’
perceived value from reading online reviews on urge to buy impulsively
and impulse buying behavior.

Findings
The empirical findings show that consumers’ perceived utilitarian and
hedonic value from reading online reviews enhance their browsing
behavior. Browsing positively affects consumers’ urge to buy impulsively
and finally affects their impulse buying behavior. Further, this study finds
that consumers with high impulsiveness focus more on hedonic value of
online reviews, whereas consumers with low impulsiveness put more
emphasis on utilitarian value. Browsing demonstrates a stronger effect on
urge to buy impulsively for consumers with high impulsiveness.

Originality/value
This study is one of the early studies to investigate the relationship
between social influence (e.g. influence of online reviews) and impulse
buying. It draws upon the perspectives of browsing and consumer’s
perceived value from the literature. This research also considers
consumer differences regarding the level of impulsiveness.

Keywords:
Online reviews, Social influence, Browsing, Consumer
value, Impulsiveness, Impulse buying behaviour

Type:
Research paper
Publisher:
Emerald Publishing Limited

Received:
16 December 2016

Revised:
13 July 2017, 26 October 2017

Accepted:
03 November 2017

Acknowledgments:
The work described in this study was supported by grants from the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos 71671174 and
71472172).

Copyright:
© Emerald Publishing Limited 2018
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited
Licensed re-use rights only

Citation:
Kem Z.K. Zhang, Haiqin Xu, Sesia Zhao, Yugang Yu, (2018) "Online
reviews and impulse buying behavior: the role of browsing and
impulsiveness", Internet Research, Vol. 28 Issue: 3, pp.522-
543, https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-12-2016-0377

Downloads:
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1741 times since 2018

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