The technological umbilical cord, or online 24/7

A world without cables, transfer limits or memory limits, with all functions fitting in your pocket. That will be the near future. Smartphones have dominated other communication tools. The latest Gartner report makes it clear – in 2020, more than 2 billion new devices for consuming online content will hit store shelves, of which more than 83% will be smartphones. A large part of this is due to 5G networks. Business is delighted at the news, as mobile is becoming its main communication channel. After all, could there be anything better than a consumer who is active 24 hours a day?

There are many indications that the market for devices used to consume internet content has hit a wall, as Gartner suggests in its latest analysis. According to the latest data, 2.16 billion new devices will reach the market in 2020. That is more than in 2019, but according to experts it will be a one-off increase.

Technology ages with dignity

Technology ages with dignity

For hardware manufacturers, this is a perfect opportunity to take a deeper breath. Considering that in 2019, for the first time in a long while, a decline in the number of devices sold was recorded. In the report, which analyses computers and mobile phones, among other things, specialists predict this year's total growth of just under 1% compared with 2019.

Technology has matured, and manufacturers are increasingly focusing on emotions and experiences – that is, communication – and not only on the number of devices sold. A better processor or a better camera are cosmetic changes and are evolutionary in nature. Just look at Apple's offer, where the iPhone 8, presented in 2017, is still available. - says Marcin Filipowicz, vice-president of Audience Network, which specialises in Big Data marketing.

Gartner analysts agree. In their opinion, the two main reasons for the slowdown in the case of smartphones are the general lengthening of the product life cycle and high saturation in key markets. In the case of computers, the reason is even simpler – high-performance and increasingly larger smartphones effectively replace PCs in their basic tasks. The computer is therefore becoming a device that is purchased deliberately to perform more advanced activities.

The real data revolution

Gartner predicts that in 2020, 12% of all mobile devices that reach the market will be phones supporting 5G networks. And that is only the beginning! Analysts say that just two years later it will already be 43%. Will the 5G Ready label make consumers open their wallets wider?

5G networks will change the way we use the internet. It is not only faster data transfer, but also lower energy consumption and greater capacity of BTS transmitters. As a result, more applications will appear that use external servers to operate, which will stimulate the development of cloud services that will offer more complex operations. And all of this leads to longer time spent in front of a smartphone screen, and as a result we will generate even more data that can help both businesses and network users. - says Grzegorz Kosiński, CEO of Audience Network.

Everyone, everything and everywhere

How 5G drives the data revolution in smartphones

Business has already noticed these breakthrough changes in the way we consume. This will intensify over time, and an increasingly large part of budgets will be allocated to activities aimed at using the internet on a smartphone as the primary communication medium. Since nearly 8 out of 10 new devices are smartphones, who could afford to ignore such a trend? The main meeting place for brands and customers will no longer be a physical store, but a virtual one that is at hand in your pocket.

Everyone has a smartphone, almost all the time. That is its fundamental advantage over, for example, a laptop. As Zenith found in 2019, the average American adult spent about 3.5 hours a day in front of their phone screen. That is 20 minutes longer than a year earlier. What is more, the company forecasts that this time will rise to more than four hours in 2021.

The network has become a space conducive to many social activities that until recently were reserved for the offline world. Mainly, however, it is a matter of convenience – we do not have to arrange to meet someone when it is enough to open any social application. - notes Grzegorz Kosiński of Audience Network, which belongs to the Cloud Technologies group.

This trend is driving changes in how businesses communicate with their environment. A good example is digital media, such as video, which more and more people comfortably watch directly on their mobile devices – it is a pocket television active 24/7. That is why eMarketer specialists openly say that the nature of communication is changing. Companies are increasingly willing and bold in engaging in mobile advertising. This applies in particular to programmatic advertising – so-called programmatic, which we define as an automated method of buying and selling advertising space in display marketing supported by machine learning algorithms. In the US (which is the largest market in the world in this respect), mobile video ads sold in the programmatic model alone generated almost USD 20 billion in 2019. And that is only the beginning; as eMarketer analysts estimate, in 2020 it will already be close to USD 25 billion. In 2019, 87.1% of total mobile video advertising spending was on mobile ads sold in the programmatic model.

Both the growing electronics market and the affordable and extensive range of smartphones contribute to increasing the number of mobile advertising recipients. This is not a forecast, but a communication reality. The market is growing rapidly, so more and more advertisers and publishers want to join the race for internet users' attention.

Summary

Gartner experts predict that in 2020, 2.16 billion new devices will reach the market, of which more than 83% will be smartphones. However, this is only a one-off increase – the market is saturated, and manufacturers are focusing on evolutionary changes. The key catalyst for change is to be 5G networks, which by 2022 will already be supported by 43% of new phones.

According to Zenith data, the average American adult spends about 3.5 hours a day in front of a smartphone screen, and this time will grow. This is prompting businesses to increase spending on mobile programmatic advertising, which in the US reached almost USD 20 billion in 2019. As Grzegorz Kosiński of Audience Network notes, 5G networks will extend time spent in front of the screen and generate even more data for business.