Women more likely to own ereaders
Purchases of ereader and tablet devices continue to climb. eMarketer estimates a 60% surge in the number of ereaders and a 178% jump in the number of tablets bought this year. Looking in depth at ereader and tablet buyer demographics shows a gender division has taken shape in terms of tablet vs. ereader ownership.
Since the early days of tablets and ereaders, adopters have tended to be young, high-income adult males. As the market has matured, an older consumer base has also demonstrated an appetite for the devices. Young adults continue to hold their ground, though, and men remain ahead of women.
April 2011 research from GfK MRI found that men were 24 percentage points more likely than average to own a tablet, while women were 19 percentage points less likely than average to do so. Men overindexed less strongly on owning an iPad specifically. Women, meanwhile, had a much stronger propensity to own ereaders, especially a Kindle or Nook.
Bizrate Insights and Forrester Research echoed the tablet findings. They surveyed online buyers—the majority of whom are women—about their tablet ownership levels. While they found that most tablet owners were women, this was only because of the high preponderance of female online buyers overall. Male online buyers were actually more likely than females to have a tablet.
The survey pinpointed 44 as the average age of male and female online buyers who owned a tablet, and found that 60% of online buyers without a tablet who planned to purchase one within 12 months were women.
Tablet and ereader adoption by middle-aged consumers suggests that tablet and ereaders are reaching another stage of market maturity. Rapid growth implies that there is room for both product categories in the mobile device marketplace. eMarketer expects 24 million US consumers to have an iPad or similar device by the end of 2011.
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Check out today’s other article, “Consumers Turn to AutoMD for Help Under the Hood.”