KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 — For Malaysians, one screen is just not enough.
Malaysians are second worldwide when it comes to fiddling with their smartphones while watching television, a survey by search giant Google revealed today.
According to Google’s Consumer Barometre 2015 report, 91 per cent of its Malaysian respondents are “multi-screening” with their smartphones, compared to 92 per cent of Indonesians and 90 per cent of the Thais.
“This is amazing. It just shows that we are all connecting. Smartphones penetration is very high,” said Sajith Sivanandan, Google’s managing director for Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and new emerging markets.
“I think the nature of Malaysians when they see something, they want to buy it immediately or they want to know more immediately. Or we are just capable of processing much more information than anyone else.”
The affinity for multitasking did not extend to other devices, however, with just 15 per cent also firing up their laptops while watching TV and just 9 per cent, their tablets.
The report also revealed that over one in every three Malaysians now exclusively use their smartphones to access the internet, second in the world only to the Thais at 37 per cent.
Usage of smartphones is also widespread among all age groups, with 93 per cent of Malaysians under 25 using them, and at least 33 per cent of those above 55.
The top five activities Malaysians engage in using smartphones are: accessing social media (84 per cent), using search engines (79 per cent), watching videos (78 per cent), product research (58 per cent), and playing games or listening to the music.
The Google study further revealed that smartphone penetration of Malaysians is at 71 per cent, among the world’s top 10.
The survey was carried out by market researcher TNS Infrafest on behalf of Google, with 1,000 and 3,000 Malaysians over 18 polled in two separate surveys respectively between November 2014 and April 2015.
