Report - Mobile Consumption of Internet Services is Abysmal

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Innovation (CCI) presents findings, from the first survey undertaken by the Australian component of the World Internet Project, titled The Internet in Australia. This is definitely quite an intriguing work that reflects upon the activities of a general population affected by the Internet. Before I jump into my summary/conclusions, some of the highlights of this report for me are :

• Nearly 80% of home has broadband.
• Only 25.3 % of people use wireless devices to access the internet.
• Only less than an hour/week on a mobile device to access the internet.
• Email is the most popular means of communicating online.
• 82.8% of users never made an internet phone call.
• 20% of people use messaging daily.
• 59.2% of internet users pay bills online.
• Only 70.9% of rural households have broadband access compared to 83.0% of households in capital cities.
• Internet users spend less time watching television, listening to radio and reading newspapers than nonusers.
• Copying a friend’s DVD is the most popular way for internet users to get digital movies.
• Nearly 60% of users will use the internet to learn about local breaking stories
• Only 8.1% of internet users usually buy music online.
• A majority (65.1%) research goods before buying them from a local store.
• While at home 50 % of people access the internet from their study room, 12% from the bedroom, 12% from the Lounge room & 11% from the living room.
• Most people rate the internet as a reliable source of information such as newspapers and more reliable than television.
• 52.1% think that the internet has increased their contact with family members.
• Just over four in ten (40.6%) internet users are using the net to look up information about restaurants.
• 86% of employed people use the Internet on a regular basis.
• 73% of Men and 70.9% of women are on the internet.
• Only 40% of people in the lower income level <20k br="" internet.="" uses="">
• 62.6% of internet users check weather forecasts online.
• People born overseas are slightly more likely to use the internet than those born in Australia (76.7% to 71.6%).
• Only less than eight per cent work on a personal blog.

My take on this report:

• Broadband is becoming a utility service.
• It is still not available to all Australians, rich people seem to be enjoying it more.
• The digital divide between cities and country areas still exists, but the difference is diminishing.
• Internet access on Mobile devices is now here compared to countries like, Korea, Japan-US & EU. This suggests a great opportunity emerging for consuming online services on a mobile device (from e-commerce to m-commerce, opportunity, opportunity).
• Being a dominant player Telstra's, hyped 3G rollout for Mobile devices seems to be not making much headway with one hour/week consumption. This reminds me of the emerging battle between carriers for the iPhone market.
• Online education-based services might be getting a lot of traction (50% of users access the internet from a study room :-) this is debatable).
• Devices like Tivo/Apple TV still haven't made it into the living room, but there is an emerging market/opportunity here.
• Online DVD Rental stores like AppleBox should work on providing more value add, as piracy in DVDs is emerging. People are ripping/downloading more songs/CDs than Movie DVDs. Ripping a friend's DVD is preferred instead of buying/renting.
  
• VOIP-based calls are still not mainstream, which suggests a lot more opportunity for carriers offering naked DSL.
• More people prefer the internet for breaking stories, which means emerging platforms like Twitter can be embedded into online media (like Fairfax) portals, definitely an opportunity here!.

Well, these are just my views from the top of my head. What do you think, this report tells us?

For detailed insights into the report, it can be downloaded in PDF format from here.