The Global Media Intelligence Report 2023

Welcome to the 13th annual Global Media Intelligence Report, which details media and device usage in 47 markets. It presents data on a regional basis, allowing for robust global comparisons of digital trends by region.

More than half of the countries polled by GWI this year showed mobile minutes exceeding PC/laptop/tablet minutes, but the data reveals digital hypergrowth is likely over throughout the world. Here’s a sampling of the findings this year:

• For the first time in the US, time spent with mobile devices was greater than daily minutes on PC/laptop/tablet. At 3 hours, 37 minutes (3:37) in H1 2023, mobile time outpaced PC/laptop/tablet by 1 minute. 
• Smartphone ownership is nearly universal in Canada, but time spent with mobile media in the country trails many other similar countries. Average daily time spent on mobile devices in Canada is 33 minutes lower than in the US, for instance.
• Western Europe doesn’t fit predictable patterns of media consumption. It’s a relative laggard in TV viewing and video and audio streaming, but it’s a hotbed for newer digital technologies like smartwatches and smart home products.
• Central and Eastern Europe is now in last place for on-demand/streaming services adoption worldwide. Despite this, the region is only second to last in time spent with online TV/streaming with a 5 minute increase since H1 2022. 
• Latin America remains the world leader in time spent across nearly half of the tracked activities. In addition, the region ranks second in two other categories. No other region is a global leader in more than two categories.
• The Asia-Pacific region lags all other regions in time spent with PC/laptop/tablet. This shows the importance of smartphones in Asia-Pacific, where mobile access to the internet is primary in rural areas and among low-income respondents.
• Time spent with mobile devices favors smartphones by a wide margin in Southeast Asia. Time with mobile reached 4:29 daily this year in Southeast Asia, 1:34 more than time with PC/laptop/tablet.
• Almost every country in the Middle East and Africa experienced a drop in time spent with online TV/streaming. It was the largest global drop, as the average regional time decreased by 13 minutes to 1:40.

Each report also includes charts and data on the following metrics:

• Device ownership
• Smartphone and tablet ownership
• Smart TV owners
• Average time spent with media
• Traditional media users
• TV viewers
• Video-on-demand (VOD) viewers
• Social media/messaging users
• Digital audio listeners
• Voice assistant/search users

About This Report

The 13th edition of the Global Media Intelligence Report is a continued partnership with Publicis Media-Starcom and collaboration with GWI, a primary research provider to Publicis Media-Starcom and a valued partner of Insider Intelligence | eMarketer. This close collaboration ensures consistent representation of topics, demographic groups, and time frames from the 2023 edition.

Methodology

GWI runs a quarterly research program, asking internet users ages 16 to 64 in more than 47 countries a range of questions about their digital lives and lifestyles. The minimum sample size per quarter, per country is 1,250; bigger markets have larger quarterly sample sizes, with the maximum being 25,000 in China and the US. Respondents can only participate in GWI’s research once per year.

The survey is designed to cover attitudes, perceptions and actual behaviors. All data is self-reported and therefore, the answers are from the respondent’s perspective rather than any passively observed metrics. For questions such as time spent with specific media, respondents are asked to select a time estimate from a list rather than entering a precise figure; all answers are then aggregated to produce an average time.

The results presented in this report are drawn from questions fielded in two different surveys running concurrently. The first is a short survey offered via mobile; it contains a key set of c. 70 questions and reaches mobile (as well as mobile-only) respondents (who tend to be younger, less affluent and concentrated in emerging markets). The second is a longer survey offered via PC, laptop, tablet or mobile; this longer survey contains all of the same questions asked in the shorter mobile survey together with a wide range of additional ones.

Within each survey, questions are routed and filtered to ensure a respondent only sees relevant queries. Similarly, some sections of the longer survey are shown to representative subsections of the full sample, to avoid overburdening them. As a result, the total sample that sees each question will vary; some questions will have been answered by all respondents across the shorter and longer surveys, whereas others will only have been answered by respondents taking part in the longer survey (or by a subsection of these respondents). For every question, GWI nevertheless ensures a robust and representative sample.

The final data set is weighted to interlocking age, gender and education quotas which reflect the internet population in each country. Note that GWI interviews and represents each country’s online population ages 16 to 64—not its total population. In countries with a high internet penetration (including in North America, Australia and much of Europe), online samples will have an age, gender and education profile which closely resembles that of the general/total population. Conversely, low internet penetration countries (including in Latin America and large parts of MEA and Asia-Pacific) will have online samples which contain proportionally higher levels of young, urban and educated individuals, reflecting the nature of internet usage in those countries. In some markets in MEA and APAC, there will also be a gender skew toward males, in line with their increased likelihood to be internet users