Global Media Intelligence 2019: Romania

Key Features

Internet users in Romania spent more than 7 hours per day on PCs and smartphones combined in H1 2019. Yet several digital habits and devices are still concentrated among early adopters.

• According to GlobalWebIndex, 95.4% of internet users in Romania ages 16 to 64 owned a smartphone in H1 2019. Usage was above 90% for all age brackets but highest among respondents in the top 25% of households, ranked by income. It was lowest among those ages 55 to 64. Perhaps predictably, the older cohort registered the highest ownership of feature phones, at 17.0%. Across all respondents, 12.4% had a feature phone.
• Ownership of desktops/laptops was comparatively high, at 87.0% of those polled; that share rose to more than 92.5% in the top 25% of households. Some 45.2% of internet users also owned a tablet, including 54.3% of those in the most affluent homes. However, these rates should be seen in the context of a survey population with a strong urban skew (see note below).
• PCs and tablets captured the largest single slice of internet users’ media time in H1 2019, at an average 4 hours, 20 minutes (4:20) per day; mobile activities accounted for an hour less (3:21).
• More than half of those polled in Q1 2019 had read a print newspaper in the prior month, and a similar number had read a print magazine. Older respondents were most likely to read print media, cited by two-thirds of 55- to 64-year-olds. But across all demographics, print was already falling behind digital press content in terms of time spent, at averages of 32 minutes and 59 minutes per day, respectively.
• Three-quarters of Romania’s internet users—78.4% of males polled and 72.3% of females—had listened to broadcast radio in the previous month, and radio claimed an average of 1:25 per day. The youngest cohort, ages 16 to 24, registered the lowest usage by a significant margin, at 61.2%.
• Smartwatches reached double-digit penetration in Romania, at 12.2% of internet users. Males were most likely to be smartwatch owners.
• It’s a bit early to tell how smart-home devices will fare in this marketplace. As of H1 2019, just 7.1% of internet users ages 16 to 64 owned such a device. On the other hand, ownership correlated directly with affluence, rising to 9.2% of internet users in the top 25% of homes—signaling that more consumers could eventually come onboard.
• Other digital devices have yet to take off in the country. In H1 2019, just 6.5% of respondents owned a smart wristband, for example, while just 2.6% owned a virtual reality (VR) headset.