August 14th, 2023, Lesley Simeon
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 18 international markets which environmentally-friendly products they are likely to cut spending on when faced with an inflation-impacted household budgets. In this piece, we focus on how likely consumers are to reduce spending on the growing market for sustainable or ethical smartphones in particular.
Data from the survey results shows that more than two-fifths of global consumers (45%) are likely to reduce sustainable or ethical smartphones purchases in the face of squeezed household budgets. Conversely, 16% of consumers are unlikely to do so.
Looking at the numbers across different age groups, consumers aged between 35 to 44 years (50%) are most likely to cut back on sustainable or ethical smartphones. Close on the heels of this group are consumers in the 25–34-year-old age group at 48%. Further, those in the 45–54-year-old age group (47%) are also likely to cut back on sustainable or ethical smartphones. On the other hand, older consumers, i.e. those aged 55 years and above (41%), are least likely to slash spending on sustainable and ethical smartphones to manage tight household budgets.
In addition to the breakdown of consumers surveyed by age, we have also looked at a geographical split of the data.
Consumers in Mexico, UAE are most likely to cut back spend on sustainable or ethical smartphones to accommodate tight household budgets; those in North America are least likely to
While the global average stands at 45%, nearly six in ten consumers in both Mexico and UAE (59% each) say they are likely to trim spend on sustainable or ethical smartphones to manage tight household budgets.
By comparison, consumers in North America are least likely to follow suit, with just over a third of them (35%) saying they are likely to cut back on this category.
Interestingly, nearly two in ten consumers in North America (18%) say they never buy environmentally-friendly smartphones - the largest proportion of consumers to say so in comparison to our other regions.
Equal proportions of consumers in Europe and North America (17%) say they are unlikely to reduce their sustainable or ethical smartphone purchases. Other regions aren’t too different, with UAE at 16%, APAC at 15% and Mexico at 14%.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 511 and 1999 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in May 2023. 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. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
Photo by Torsten Dettlaff on Pexels