PCs and tablets still claim the lion’s share of daily time spent, but mobile and other digital behaviors are spreading.
Like many advanced economies with a comfortable standard of living, New Zealand posts high penetration of desktops and laptops, even as smartphones have come to rule the device landscape. In H1 2019, 94.3% of internet users ages 16 to 64 owned a smartphone, according to GlobalWebIndex, but PC ownership remained high at 84.0%. Almost half (48.6%) of those polled had a tablet as well. Feature phone penetration had dropped below 6%.
Larger-screen devices accounted for substantially more media time, too. Taken together, activities on desktops, laptops and tablets consumed an average of 3 hours, 38 minutes (3:38) per day in H1 2019, compared with 2:32 spent on mobile phones.
Live TV viewing is less widespread in New Zealand than in most comparable countries—73.4% of respondents said they had watched broadcast TV in the prior month. That’s partly because large numbers of internet users were watching broadcasters’ catch-up services (62.2%) or a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service such as Netflix (70.1%). In other words, SVOD usage is on track to close the gap with broadcast TV within the next year or so.
In total, 85.5% of internet users had streamed some type of video content via digital platforms in the prior month. In the 16-to-34 age bracket, about 92% had done so. In fact, all forms of digital video consumption were appreciably more common among younger respondents and those who were most affluent.
Despite this, time spent with broadcast TV is still well ahead in New Zealand, at an average of 1:53 per day, compared with 1:08 spent with online TV and streamed video content. The gap between digital and traditional time spent with audio is less pronounced. In H1 2019 respondents spent an average of 1:15 daily with broadcast radio, vs. 1:06 with streaming music. Time spent on social media was higher, at 1:47 daily. (GlobalWebIndex includes YouTube in its social category, and this tends to boost both reach and time spent for social media overall.)
