Astoundingly, mobile is leapfrogging (& accelerating) all other development metrics. Thanks @benedictevans pic.twitter.com/IA3SblWKbw
— Khai (@ThamKhaiMeng) January 16, 2016
According to the latest Ofcom Communications Market report, Northern Ireland has become a “smartphone society”.
In the last five years, smartphone ownership among adults has tripled (from 21% to 63%) and is now the preferred way to access the internet, having overtaken the laptop.
Additionally in the same time period, tablet ownership has gone from 2% to 54%.
Fixed line broadband take-up still remains well below than the UK average and we now lag behind England and Wales for coverage. But with the trends of 4G being available (considering all operators) to 91% of premises in Northern Ireland, it would seem that our internet usage is not only growing up, but growing even more mobile year on year.
Northern Ireland has always been a quick adopter of new technology – from having the most rapid growth in portable music players and also having the highest penetration of the iPod brand in Western Europe.
The full communications market report is available here.
The last thing to notice is that mobile is more prevalent than electricity, sanitation, clean water and education.