Global Media Intelligence 2021: Germany

Noteworthy in 2021

Patterns of device ownership and use remained fairly conservative in Germany.

  • Smartphone ownership among internet users ages 16 to 64 passed 95% in H1 2020 and reached 95.9% in H1 2021. Only 2.9% of those polled had a feature phone. As in H1 2020, this was one of the lowest percentages recorded worldwide for this metric.
  • The share of internet users who owned a desktop or laptop fell slightly year over year (YoY) but was still high by global standards, at 83.5% in H1 2021. Penetration correlated directly with age; in the oldest cohort, 88.5% of respondents owned a PC. More than half (54.3%) of internet users owned a tablet—a small increase from 2020.
  • Though almost all of Germany’s internet users owned a smartphone, most didn’t spend a great deal of time on them. In H1 2021, the average time spent per day with mobile was 2 hours, 18 minutes (2:18)—compared with 3:19 spent with desktops/laptops and tablets. Mobile devices also claimed less time than broadcast TV (2:19). This pattern, typical of many Western European countries, is a far cry from the ones seen in much of Latin America and Asia-Pacific, where mobile time often exceeded live TV time by 2 hours or more.

authors

Karin von Abrams

Contributors

Anam Baig
Senior Editor
Joanne DiCamillo
Magenta Fox
Senior Chart Editor
Donte Gibson
Chart Editor
Kathleen Hamblin
Chart Editorial Manager
Dana Hill
Director of Production
Erika Huber
Copy Editor
Hilary Rengert
VP, Research Strategy
Amanda Silvestri
Senior Copy Editor
Ali Young
Research Editor