Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, December 13, 2020
Net usage of any of the three major Facebook platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – reflects a reach into the majority of online adults. However, this market penetration varies by age group and country. This MetaFAQs reports on the market penetration for users of any of these three platforms in the US, UK, and Germany across four age groups.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, November 17, 2020
What is Apple’s share of actively used smartwatches? How does this vary between the US, the UK, Germany, and Japan? How has this changed in recent years? This MetaFAQs reports on Apple’s share of the active installed base across four countries and four years.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, November 14, 2020
The penetration of Apple iPads has shifted over the last five years, with larger households behaving differently than smaller ones. This MetaFAQs reports on the active market penetration of Apple iPads by household size in the US, UK, and Germany.
Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, April 8, 2020
Employees working at home have many options when it comes to staying in touch with coworkers and clients while working from home. With the sudden move to working from home, there was a sudden shift in market share. This MetaFAQs draws on the April 2020 MetaFacts Pulse Survey to identify which platforms employees have been using for their work-related and personal video communications, further split by video conferences versus video calls.
Age matters when it comes to Voice Assistant use, and it’s overly simplistic to say that they’re mostly being used by younger adults. Yes, there’s a strong age difference between active Voice Assistant users, former users, and those who’ve never even given one a try. And yes, otherwise-connected adults that have never used a Voice Assistant are older than active users by a decade. The average age of a Connected Adult who has never used a Voice Assistant is 51.7 years. By comparison, the average age for active Voice Assistant users, those who’ve used one at least once within the last 90 days, is 41.6 years.
However, in this time of experimentation and users finding their own voices, younger adults are disproportionately former Voice Assistant users. They used a Voice Assistant within the last year and haven’t used one since.
This is based on results from the MetaFacts Voice User Profile (VUP) survey conducted in February 2018. The results report on active usage, which is a practical measure to contrast with the promised potential of what Voice Assistants may or may not be able to do.
Our TUP 2017 results show a similar pattern – the novelty effect. Older Millennials have the highest active Voice Assistant usage rates. This group of 28-36 year-olds also shows the steepest dropoff between recent and less-recent use. This novelty effect is also prevalent among younger millennials (age 18-27) as their usage rate drops.
Voice Assistant Usage Recency by Age
Observations
As a long-time tech analyst, I’ve seen many technologies go through fits and starts as they either reach broader adoption or settle back into their niches. Apple’s Macs had PlainTalk 25 years ago, yet the voice recognition and speech synthesis system never reached widespread regular use. Still, the earliest adopters found ways to use these early Voice Assistants, such as dictation. Apple’s Siri arguably brought usable Voice Assistants into handy use for a much broader audience. The most-recent entries from Amazon and Microsoft to Google have brought a lot of heat and light to the category, although it’s still too early to declare Voice Assistants as be mainstream. There are many challenges ahead for makers of Voice Assistant systems and listening devices. It’s hard enough to encourage users to experiment with a Voice Assistant. It’s even harder to get users to continue using a technology after the novelty wears off. Many who have tried have given up, disappointed or daunted that their Voice Assistant hasn’t lived up their, er, its words.
Related research results
The MetaFacts Voice User Profile includes other related analysis, including:
The subjects Voice Assistant users ask about: weather, scheduling, music, entertainment, home automation, and more
Which Voice Assistant systems are being actively used, on which platforms, and which segments they are attracting
Which listening devices are being actively used – from Smart Speakers to Smartphones and Headsets
Where Voice Assistant users will – and won’t – do their talking: in restaurants, driving, while walking, and many other locations and settings
How well – or poorly – users experience their Voice Assistants, and how performance metrics vary by system and listening device
Reasons given why consumers have never used a Voice Assistant, as well as why former users aren’t currently active users
Source
The information in this MetaFAQ is based on a survey of 7,410 online adults in mid-2017 as part of the MetaFacts Technology User Profile (TUP) study and 525 online adults during February 2018 as part of the MetaFacts Voice User Profile (VUP) study. The TUP and VUP study universes included a representative sample of online adults, with active Voice Assistant users, former Voice Assistant users, as well as consumers who have never used a Voice Assistant. Current TUP subscribers can obtain the results of this newest research at a discount. For more information about MetaFacts and subscribing to VUP or TUP, please contact MetaFacts.
