Armin Amio / Companies and Technology Editor
JUST like anywhere in
the world, it appears that human life in the Philippines is now being
mirrored online. Nearly half of urban-based Filipinos are turning to the
Internet for information, communication and entertainment. This, thanks
to the lower acquisition cost of Internet-capable devices such as
computers and mobile phones and the decline in connection charges,
market-research company Synovate Inc. said on Tuesday.
In its 2010-2011 Media
Atlas Philippine survey, Synovate said 46 percent of urban Filipinos
access the Internet, 14 percentage points higher than the previous
year’s 32 percent, with the bulk of the increase coming from the 15- to
24-year-old segment which posted a high 71 percent. Last year only 57
percent of this age group accessed the Internet.
“Based
on these figures and on the resulting psychographic analysis done on
the data, Internet may be considered a real challenge to print and radio
as an advertising medium, with 25 percent of the respondents finding it
an effective medium for advertising compared with television’s 37
percent,” Carole Sarthou, managing director of Synovate-Philippines,
said.
Sarthou,
however, pointed out that in terms of people engagement, the print media
figures much higher than with television and radio. She said newspapers
and magazines posted a high 62 percent compared with radio’s 19 percent
and TV’s low 19 percent. “This means that readers are more focused when
accessing information from the print media compared with those whose
main information channels are TV and radio as they tend to do other
chores such as eating, doing housework or talking to the phone,” she
said.
The Synovate
executive also noted that the observed decline in preference for the
print media may have tapered off. “Over the past two survey periods,
newspapers remain a firm favorite with 30 percent of the population
reading one or more local language or English titles and about 22
percent read magazines,” she said.
As
in previous years, Steve Garton, Synovate managing director for media
for Greater China, pointed out that print readers tend to be more
upscale, belonging to the A, B and C+ socioeconomic classes and tend to
be within the older age group. The company also observed
that there is a “flight to quality” in terms of print media consumption,
meaning readers want value and excellence from their newspapers and
magazines.
The challenge for print media owners, said Sarthou, is how to drive the interest of the younger age category to this medium.
“Mainstream
media must learn to be a part of the action,” noted Garton, adding that
the continued growth of Internet use in the country cannot be ignored. Access
to the Internet has crossed all socioeconomic classes and age groups.
“Even those in the 50- to 60-year-old age group find it a whole lot
easier to access the Internet, thanks to easier user interface,” Garton
said.
The
precursor to this trend, however, remains those in the younger age group
who now “define their lives digitally.” He explained that there is now a
growing preference for the two-way communication provided by the
Internet as readers can interact and reply compared with the one-way
information transfer given by traditional media. A game-changer, he
said, is when the so-called Internet or smart TV will become predominant
in the market.
Garton
also said more and more Filipinos are accessing the Internet in their
homes rather than the Internet café, mainly because of the lower cost of
broadband connection provided by telecom companies. Desktop PCs are the
predominant mode of Internet access at 82 percent of the study
population, while laptops and mobile phones posted 35 percent and 21
percent, respectively. He, however, expects mobile-phone Web access to
increase to around 33 percent by 2012.
Filipinos,
the survey noted, access the Internet mainly to communicate (e-mail and
chat), visit social-networking sites (such as Facebook, Twitter or
MySpace), search for information, download or upload music video and
software, play online games, listen to music, share files and even book
for their travel requirements.
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