Home Electronic Interactive Services Set to Explode!!!
Demand for home electronic interactive services is set to explode according to recent research conducted by MORI. Home shopping services are likely to be the most popular service with two-thirds of the population saying they would be interested in using some kind of home shopping services, if they were easily available.
However, there are significant differences by age, sex and class, depending on the type of service available. Buying clothes electronically, for example, would have particular appeal to young women aged 15-24 and working class people generally. Young, middle class males would be most likely to be interested in an application to purchase event tickets.
Similarly, young men are more likely than women to be interested in home banking services but middle aged men and women are equally attracted to this service. Demand is higher in the upper social groups, although half of the working class DE groups are also likely to be interested.
Regionally, demand for most of these services is higher in London than elsewhere in Great Britain. Londoners are fifty per cent more likely than people from other parts of the country to be interested in buying life assurance electronically and forty per cent more likely to buy event tickets. Almost thirty per cent more Londoners would be interested in getting music-on-demand.
There is a low appreciation of digital TV, especially among women. Men are much more aware of this service than women (74% men Vs 59% women) as are middle aged adults generally. However, sixty-two per cent of women have either not heard of or cannot explain the benefits of digital TV, compared with almost half (48%) of men.
Other key findings from the survey are designed to provide reliable information about what home communications technology include:
- There are 7.9 million home computers in Britain
- Their average age is two and a half years
- Connections to the Internet is set to grow by 15-20% over the next six months
- Nearly a third of Internet and WWW users in Britain are women
Peter Hutton, the MORI Director responsible for the project said;
"There is a lot of conflicting information about the penetration and types of computers and other technologies in the home. This survey aims to correct this"
The Home Electronic Access Tracking Study (HEATS) aims to provide the most detailed information currently available on the market for home electronic interactive technology and services. It is based on in-home face-to-face interviews with over 2,500 respondents including a boosted sample of those in households with 386 or above computers. Interviews were conducted in April 1997.
