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Portable People: How Handheld Devices Change Social Media and e-Commerce

By Joe Taliuaga, Research Manager, Rockbridge Associates, Inc.

Handheld device owners conduct a third of their social networking and email when they are "mobile." Yet, online commerce, banking and travel are still conducted mainly from stationary computers. While portable devices provide greater flexibility in when and where users can conduct business, portable commerce is hindered by security fears that mirror those that originally slowed e-commerce adoption.

Over the past few years, the market has seen an influx of portable internet devices including the iPhone, Blackberry and Android-based Smartphones. Today, a quarter of the U.S. adult population personally uses a portable handheld device with internet access. Use of these devices is not just relegated to the workplace. According to the National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS) conducted by Rockbridge with the Robert H. Smith School of Business, over half the population (51%) use handhelds exclusively for personal activities, while 42% use the devices for both personal and work activities. Only 6% use their portable device exclusively for work.

These devices allow people to complete certain tasks such as email, social networking, and personal shopping from any location at any time. Only 16% of consumers with a mobile device exclusively use their stationary personal/work computer to conduct their social networking activities. Two in ten will only use their personal/work computer for email. In contrast, over half will avoid conducting financial business or shopping from their portable devices, while nine in ten consumers avoid booking travel in this manner. It is ironic that portable devices are heavily used during travel but the travel itself is rarely booked from the same device. (See Figure 1)

People with portable devices have portable social lives. Among device owners, a third of the time spent on the social tasks of emailing and social networking is conducted from a mobile device. To illustrate, if a friend with an iPhone spends 9 hours a week on Facebook and LinkedIn, 3 of those hours are likely done from the portable device. (See Figure 2)

Mirroring the incidence of use, time spent on tasks involving banking and commerce on portable devices is less than time spent on social tasks. Almost all of the time spent online on booking travel, online shopping and purchasing, and conducting financial activities is done from a home or work computer and not the portable device.

Why do consumers choose to make their lives "portable"? The major benefit of using a mobile device is convenience, particularly when traveling. Over half of consumers (55%) consider the ability to do things while traveling out of town to be a major benefit. Other major benefits include not having to wait to get to a computer to handle an urgent matter, more flexible hours to do things, and the flexibility to find a comfortable location. (See Figure 3)

Portable devices also have drawbacks, the greatest being the security risked posed by losing the device. Security risks are a major factor for almost two out of three consumers with portable devices. This may be a key reason portable devices are not being used as often for online banking and commerce. If a consumer handles all their online financial activities from a portable device, losing the device can be a devastating event. Not only have they lost vital personal information causing hours of work to recover, replicate, and update, but that information could be possessed by a stranger.

The slow adoption of commerce and finance on portable devices mirrors the pattern for these activities over the internet. Initially, consumers were reluctant to do business over the internet because of perceived security concerns, but this eventually changed as confidence grew. Services providers need to stress that certain benefits of portable devices such as 24 hour access from any location can actually make the services more secure by putting the consumer in control. Longer term, manufacturers and developers need to work on functionality that prevents access by unauthorized users. Ultimately, more commerce will shift to portable environments just as it has shifted to the internet over the past.

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