Television 2.0: More and more TV sets surf the net
The Convergence Monitor 2019 shows that Internet-enabled devices are present in German households in an even greater proportion than in 2018. The device landscape is becoming more diversified due to the variation in online-enabled devices, but the TV is still by far the most important device for moving images.
For 2019, it is clear that the TV will continue to dominate the appliance landscape in German households this year. 95 percent of households are equipped with at least one TV set. In second place is the smartphone, which is present in 88 percent of all households. Furthermore, 84 percent of households own a computer, with a trend from stationary PCs to laptops. The tablet is also growing and is now present in 41 percent of all households.
While the proportion of online users remains stable year-on-year, the distribution of Internet usage among the various device types has changed: The smartphone is now the most popular end device for Internet use, with increasing significance, and is clearly setting itself apart from the PC or laptop.
The TV set is also increasingly becoming a popular screen for Internet use. According to their own statements, 44 percent of households now have a TV set with which they can access the Internet. 31 percent of smart TV sets are actually connected to the Internet.
This development is also reflected in the duration of Internet use: 14- to 69-year-olds use smart TVs for Internet services for almost half an hour a day on average. But 14- to 69-year-olds also surf the web on their smartphones for significantly longer than a year ago: 14- to 69-year-olds spend 109 minutes online with their smartphones, an increase of 20 minutes per day.
In addition to the convergence between television and the Internet, there is another significant development in the German television market: the spread of Ultra HD. 21 percent of German-speaking households now have at least one such Ultra HD-capable TV set. In 2018, it was only 13 percent.
The latest types of internet-enabled devices such as smart speakers as well as smart watches and fitness wristbands are also becoming increasingly popular. Both smart speakers and wearables are growing from the low level of the previous year, with the latter already present in one in ten households.
"Once again this year, the Convergence Monitor provides us with many exciting insights," reflects Petra Dittrich, Senior Director Media Research at Kantar. "While we observe that the number of flat-screen devices and smartphones remains constant at a high level, we see a clear growth trend for Internet usage with the TV set. It is thus becoming increasingly important for Internet use. But other smart devices such as digital voice assistants and smart watches are also becoming more popular. It remains to be seen what role they will play in the future."
These and other findings can be found in the twelfth edition of the Convergence Monitor research series. The representative survey provides an in-depth overview of the spread of convergent technologies for telecommunications, the Internet and media, as well as consumer attitudes and interests.
For the Convergence Monitor 2019 a total of 1,624 people aged 14 to 69 in Germany were surveyed. The survey is representative of the German-speaking resident population between the ages of 14 and 69 in private households in Germany and was conducted in the form of face-to-face oral interviews (CAPI) from April to June 2019. The Convergence Monitor 2019 is a joint study by ARD Advertising Sales & Services, Discovery and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, conducted by Kantar, and provides important insights into topics and trends around convergence from a customer perspective, in addition to current and potential usage of media and telecommunications services. Key topics included smart TV, on-demand use of video content, mobile Internet use/smartphones, and time budgets for using TV content and the Internet.
