Recently we released new research called “The Consumer Barometer”, providing powerful insights into the way consumers are using the web across 46 countries worldwide.

What’s clear from the data is that Asia is leading a mobile revolution. To put it another way, Asia has gone mobile-first. This is no longer a future trend, on some dim and distant horizon—it’s already happened in the past year. What do we mean by “mobile-first”? Well, for starters, Asia takes gold and silver for top smartphone adoption—Singapore is now #1 in the world at 85%, and Korea is just behind at 80%. This might not come as a surprise since these are both, after all, advanced economies.

What really puts this in perspective is when you look at computer adoption figures. In most countries computer adoption is still high, but what’s new is that across Asia—especially Southeast Asia—smartphone adoption has overtaken computer adoption for the first time in the past year. The trend is true in countries of all sizes and stages of economic development: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, not to mention Hong Kong and China.


Asia has leapfrogged the desktop internet
[Image] Source: The Consumer Barometer, 2014
[Image] Source: The Consumer Barometer, 2014
What about the West? Well, that’s where things get really interesting. It turns out this is a thoroughly Asian trend. There are (from this survey at least) no countries outside Asia where smartphone penetration is higher than computer penetration.

If we needed any further evidence that Asia has gone mobile-first, take a look at the figures for users who only go online via smartphones. Across Asia, especially Southeast Asia, we see many high double-digit numbers, but in the West this is largely a single-digit, or low double-digit trend.


In Asia, mobile is a must have [Image] Source: The Consumer Barometer, 2014.
In Asia, consumers are living in a mobile-first world that needs new products and services built with mobile in mind, not as an after thought or nice-to-have. There’s a great chance here for Asian businesses to lead the world in mobile-first innovation by reacting fast to the revolution that’s happened on the streets right outside their office doors. All they need to do is heed the consumers’ call.

A note on the research:
For more insights like these, head to www.consumerbarometer.com where you can explore the results of our survey carried out by Taylor Nelson Sofres and Google across 46 countries covering device usage and online access, how people shop and watch and the role of digital in the path-to-purchase.

Posted by Simon Kahn, Chief Marketing Officer, Google Asia Pacific