July 7th, 2022, Rishad Dsouza
A fresh YouGov study conducted across 18 global and diverse markets finds that there might be an opportunity for companies to build brand equity simply by investing in more informative messaging.
While rates vary, a sizeable portion of global consumers indicate that they do not have adequate knowledge to make suitable purchase decisions across a range of tech and telco categories. In this piece, we look at consumer knowledge in each of the following product categories: Mobile phones, laptops, gaming consoles and cellular network providers.
Globally, rates of those who say they can make informed purchase decisions in mobile phones is the highest (69%) - Not surprising given how popular a product category it is. Even so, a quarter of consumers say they are either not very confident or not at all confident about shopping for the right phone.
Three in five (61%) of global consumers say they are confident when it comes to their knowledge of laptops. A similar proportion of them say they are well-versed with information on mobile carriers (63%).
When it comes to gaming consoles, however, only a third of consumers (33%) indicate they have the necessary levels of knowledge to make a good purchase decision. It is plausible that most of those who are not confident with respect to their knowledge of consoles (43%) have little interest in buying a console in the first place. But it could be that those who change their minds later will have a better recall value for brands that satisfied those knowledge gaps.
When looking at regional cuts of the data, we find significant variances. For instance, just 57% of consumers in France say they are very confident or somewhat confident in their existing knowledge with respect to buying a cell phone. On the other hand, more than four in five urban Indians (83%) express the confidence about making informed purchase decisions when it comes to mobile phones. India logs high proportions across each category, and this may be partially explained by the fact that our India sample is restricted to the urban population.
Other than that, a younger median age across Asian markets might explain their tendency to be more confident in purchasing tech and video gaming products.
France logs the lowest proportion under the mobile network providers too (51%), with a couple of other European markets in proximity (Denmark 52%, Italy 57%, Poland 57%). In the US, three in five consumers say they are confident in their knowledge to pick the right mobile network provider and that share rises to two-thirds among Brits (66%).
Swedes (47%) and Danes (49%) are among the least likely in the world to express confidence in their ability to make suitable purchase decisions on laptops. Brits (64%), Spaniards (66%) and Italians (63%) lead the European pack. Looking at North America, at least three in five consumers in each of the US (61%), Canada (63%) and Mexico (67%) indicate they have enough knowledge to make the right choice in laptops.
Consumers in UAE (47%) lead the global pack when it comes to knowledge on gaming consoles. High rates are seen among consumers in Australia (40%), Hong Kong (44%), India (42%), Mexico (42%) and Spain (43%), too.
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Methodology: The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 514 and 2037 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in March 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.