Telenor Asia survey: Online gaming goes mainstream due to mobile access

Telenor Asia Study: Socialising online is the top use of the mobile phone, with mobile investing and social gaming set to grow. Photo: Internet Matters

Based on its own survey, Telenor Asia says people across Asia are increasingly socializing more online than they do in person.

The survey dives into people’s digital lives and forms the third and final part of the Telenor Asia “Digital Lives Decoded” series launched in 2022 as part of Telenor Asia’s 25th anniversary. It aims at mapping out the role of mobile connectivity in life, work, and play of 8.000 mobile internet users in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore Thailand and Vietnam.

In the final report, Telenor reports nearly half of the respondents said they meet new people regularly online via social media apps and expect to do so even more in the coming years.

Additionally, people also spend increasingly more of their leisure time on online investing, social gaming, learning apps and podcasts.

According to Jørgen C. Arentz Rostrup, Head of Telenor Asia, the main findings of the survey is that mobile technology has transformed gaming and that gaming is bringing positive impacts to real-life communities, reinforcing relationships and making daily life work, healthcare and learning more efficient.

Mr. Rostrup does not offer any deeper explanations to these statements but adds the findings from the Digital Lives Decoded study highlight the opportunity for operators to expand towards new capabilities and services, becoming not only enablers of the technology but also partners in the virtual world.

Below, some of the central trends from the study are highlighted

  • As seen in previous reports, Singaporeans are the least likely to recognise the benefits of mobile technology in their day-to-day lives. They are also the least dependent on their mobiles for downtime activities (32% versus 47% overall) and the least likely to socialise more virtually than in-person (49%).
  • Respondents across the region are increasingly looking to their mobile devices for self-improvement, personal upskilling and development with women and younger generations most likely to say they feel the benefits. In particular, more than half of Gen-Zs (51%) said that learning on their mobile has significantly improved their quality of life, in contrast to only one quarter (25%) of older generations.
  • Just over one-third (39%) of respondents are keen to socialise and make new friends in the Metaverse. Singaporeans are the most resistant or sceptical about this, with only 26% keen to explore this possibility. In contrast, respondents in the Philippines are the most enthusiastic, with more than half (55%) keen to do so.
  • Although coming in second to listening to music (65%), 63% of respondents spend at least an hour a day streaming on-demand content on their mobile phones. Gaming takes 59% of the respondents’ time. Across the region, Thai respondents are likely to spend the most amount of time – with 8% estimating that they spend 7-8 hours per day streaming content on-demand.

Source: https://www.telenor.com/media/newsroom/press-releases/telenor-asia-digital-lives-decoded-play/index.page

About Jeannette Hinrup

Jeannette Sophie Hinrup is a Danish environmental geographer traveling South East Asia while writing for ScandAsia.

View all posts by Jeannette Hinrup

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