Millennials may have been born with game controllers in their hands and cell phones at their mouths, but it’s Gen Xers, the group that invented much of today’s digital technology, who spend the most time on mobile devices. The older generation’s average session times exceed those of millennials.
That’s just one of the surprising findings of “Mobile Path to Purchase 2014,” a study of members of Nielsen’s Smartphone Analytics Panel commissioned by mobile ad network xAd and mobile analytics provider Telmetrics. Here are some others:
Gender-bender. The clichéd image of mobile myopia usually features female millennials ignoring each other while glued to their phones. The truth is that men actually account for more of the total time spent on mobile, while women spend more time doing phone research. Ladies are tagged with 70% of the time spent looking for restaurants, however.
Both on the buy side. An identical 63% of male and female shoppers complete purchases based on their research, though women are more likely to convert through their devices. Women decide based on price, men on preferred brands.
Wisdom of the ages. Baby Boomers tend to have a better idea of what they want when researching products on mobile devices, not that big of a shock. Millennials are much more likely to spend time browsing on their smartphones, most likely because price is their key consideration factor versus brand for their parents.
