Device Desires Of Superconnected Consumers

First things get miniaturized, then mini things get combined with other mini things to make something (slightly) bigger than the sum of its parts. So it is with connected digital devices that have been proliferating for years — wearables, notebooks and the like — that are now consolidating into fewer items, each with far more application and computing muscle.

For example, “the ownership of the connected consumers’ ‘core’ devices — like smartphones, laptop and desktop computers and voice assistants — is up across the board for the third consecutive year. Ninety percent of our surveyed consumers now own smartphones, up from 84 percent who owned smartphones in 2018,” according to How We Will Pay, a PYMNTS and Visa collaboration, which surveyed a Census-balanced sample of close to 9,600 consumers.

In specific information taken from that study, How We Will Pay Brief III: Connected Devices, notes that “ownership of single-purpose devices like eReaders and activity trackers has been steadily declining over the past three years. Ownership of eReaders has fallen to 20 percent in 2020, down from 23 percent in 2019 and 26 percent in 2018.”

As the year of COVID accelerated pretty much everything else, it also sped up device trends.

The report observed that consumers owned “as many connected devices in 2020 as they did in 2019: 4.9, on average. The mix of those devices has changed, according to How We Will Pay – Brief III: “Consumers, once collectors of a variety of specialized connected devices … are swapping out those devices for those that offer more utility and connect to richer ecosystems.”

Read full the full report by clicking here.

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