Consumers to spend 800 hours a year on mobile devices

We all know that more and more people are spending time on their mobile devices.

But did you know that consumers around the world will spend an average of 800 hours a year accessing content from their mobile devices?

According to Zenith’s latest media consumption forecast, the rapid growth is attributed to more affordable smartphones, faster connectivity, better screens and app innovation.

By 2021, mobile internet usage is expected to account for 31% of global media consumption, up from 27% this year, but still slightly behind the 33% secured by traditional television.

That means traditional television will remain the world’s favorite medium by 2021, although television viewing is expected to dip from 167 minutes a day in 2019 to 165 minutes a day in 2021.

The rise of mobile device usage from 2014 to 2019 has come at the expense of newspapers and magazines (print versions only) as well as desktop internet usage.

The average amount of time people spent reading print newspapers has fallen from 17 minutes a day in 2014 to 11 minutes in 2019, while magazine consumption declined from eight minutes a day to four over the same period. Meanwhile, desktop internet usage fell from 47 minutes a day to 40.

However, Zenith found that radio and cinema remained “robust”, with radio listening increasing from 53 minutes a day to 55 from 2014 to 2019, while demand in China helped lift time spent at the cinema from 1.8 minutes to three minutes a day on average.

Sources: Zenith and WARC