Google has released findings that put Malaysia among the top five countries where smartphone usage is higher than computers. At least one in three Malaysians don’t even use a computer for accessing the internet anymore, which is the highest statistic in the world.
Malaysia is one out of only five places in the world where smartphone usage is higher than computers at 51-percent vs 39-percent. The other countries all share the same trait in that they are also Asian, with China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. Despite Hong Kong being a part of China, Google appears to track the data independently.
An interesting find is that while smartphone adoption throughout the Asia Pacific region is growing rapidly, the same trend is not seen in the rest of the world. Smartphone-exclusive internet access lags behind in developed countries like Germany (7-percent) and the UK (6-percent). Google offers no insights or explanation for why this disparity exists, although it could simply be that other countries can afford to have multiple internet capable devices. A dumbphone is not an issue if the owner also has an internet capable tablet.
Malaysians also appear to have fully embraced the concept of online shopping and e-commerce, with 70-percent of respondents at least researching their next purchase online. Flight tickets and hotel bookings were the most popular online purchases, although clothes, cinema tickets, and insurance also topped the list.
For more information about the Google Consumer Barometer and its findings visit the official website.
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