Recently, POCO did a case study on how Southeast Asia consumers spend their time on mobile phones and their purchase habits. The target group was the Millenials and Gen Z, aged 18 to 40 year-olds and was conducted between 27-28 July 2023 across five countries - Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
According to POCO's survey, watching videos is the top activity that the target groups do daily with 81%, followed by chatting online (naturally). Browsing the internet and visiting their social media platforms are also in the top 4 which makes sense. Interestingly, playing mobile games and listening to music, as well as taking photos and videos aren't as high as we thought.
Besides that, the majority of consumers (51%) do spend a lot of time doing online shopping on their mobile phones daily or several times a week. Also comparing Gen Z to Millenials, the former spend a lot more hours on social media, messaging, video streaming and online shopping as seen in the chart.
In terms of purchasing habits, the majority of the target groups will only wait every 3 years to get a brand new phone (51%), while only 26% will do it every 2 years. Most of them (31%) also seem to prefer visiting a physical store to purchase a phone, whereas online shopping on official brand stores and e-commerce platforms is 17% and 14% respectively.
Gen Z and Millenials also revealed the top 3 reasons that make a good phone purchase. From both "Reasons for considering a new phone" and "Definition of a good phone", the top 3 are more or less the same which are great performance, longer battery life and large storage capacity. Camera quality also seems to play a role.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing responses from Gen Z and Millenials is that, compared to 5 years ago, 76% of them now prefer mid-range brands over established ones like Samsung and Apple. 8 in 10 also stated they are much more/somewhat more confident in mid-range phones due to affordability and budget-friendly factors, offering a good balance of price and performance.
To conclude - speed, performance, and storage capacity are key purchase drivers for both Gen Z and Millennials looking to buy new mobile phones, and they are looking for brands that can affordably deliver on these capabilities. A phone’s gaming capabilities, balanced by price have led younger generations to change the way phone brands market their products.
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