Urban India has the highest level of early tech adopters globally : YouGov white paper 2020

 3rd December 2020    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

YouGov's latest white paper, 'First in Line: Early Technology Adopters Around the Globe' looks at six key markets including India to examine technology adoption trends.

While Asia has a significantly larger group of early adopters it is India that shows the really interesting result. 

India's urban population sample in the study, at 48%, has the highest level of early tech adoption of any market in the  study including the US, UK, Germany and Japan.  Out of this 48%, a high 30% belonged to the “dedicated followers” group and the remaining to the first wave of followers group.

Who are these early adopters demographically?

The YouGov survey based white paper shows that overall the early adopters tend to be male, young (between 18 and 34 years) and affluent as they are willing to spend on high -priced new technology products.

In India, early tech adopters (dedicated followers and first wave of followers) skew towards the 18-34 years demographic to a greater extent than many other surveyed markets. YouGov analysts also took a look at their levels of affluence for better differentiation. Nearly a third of early adopters have between 10,001 and 50,000 rupees per month to spend on themselves, as compared to 16% of the latecomers to technology.

Download the whitepaper from YouGov here 

India's approach to technology 

According to the survey, India's 'Dedicated followers' (made up of dedicated followers and first wave of followers) are the most engaged and largest group of early adopters globally and indicate some clear cues for marketers. They are most likely to take the opinion of celebrities and influencers into account when making a purchase (32% vs. 16% online rep) and to say that brands must connect with customers in real life in order to be successful.

Intent to buy

YouGov data suggests that early adopters are much more likely to own multiple devices. For example, early adopters are 10% more likely than the general population to buy a new mobile handset in the next 2 to 6 months and there is a thirteen percentage point gap between those who intend to buy new consumer appliances in the next year (79% early adopters as compared to 66% from online rep).

Using the Internet 

There are also notable differences between how early adopters and the online public use the internet.  Although overall the Indian urban population surveyed is very engaged online, technophiles are more likely to engage in every category of digital activity.

The YouGov white paper suggests that, "From a commercial perspective, marketers could potentially pitch certain products at both the wider consumer group and technophiles alike: a fintech app, for example, may in theory be appealing to each audience – as might a streaming or ecommerce platform."

Television Tech preferences 

The study also examined the level of technology urban Indian want in that all important centre of entertainment: a TV set. The data shows that early adopters are more likely to want special features such as access to Internet and built in access to apps such as YouTube.

Download the whitepaper here 

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