The Pakistan Digital Consumer Study identifies several significant trends among Pakistani Internet users toward capturing the full potential of the Internet in Pakistan.
Pakistani users are putting their Internet into a new gear. 2014 is the year mobile Internet overtakes desktop Internet. Everyone needs to relearn what they think they know about the Internet.
Falling prices of smartphones and the launch of 3G. Internet-capable feature phones continue to play an important role too.
Android has an important role to play.
Unreliability of the country’s electricity supply pushing the usage of tablets and smartphones.
Pakistani users are using the Internet for education, financial services and research. This points to a future trend of Pakistan making the web work for them.
The top three activities on the desktop Internet are social media, email, search.
Education content use is higher on smartphones than on desktop.
Online banking, bill payments and investing also figure highly on mobile Internet.
Pakistani digital consumers are consuming more Internet content than broadcast and print.
Average hours spent on the Internet: weekday – 2.25; weekend – 3.
Home is the preferred location for Internet access — even for mobile-only users.
The report highlights the following challenges in the way of realising the full potential of the Internet in Pakistan.
The main challenge is quality and reliability of Internet connectivity both in terms of Internet Service Provider coverage and utility reliability.
The secondary challenge is more equal gender involvement in Internet usage.
The report points to the following opportunities for Pakistan to make the Internet work better for Pakistanis:
Economic impact of the Internet, esp. for SMBs. If Internet access barriers are lowered to consumers, businesses and communities, then we can expect growth to be far more rapid than what we are already seeing. Growth on the Internet encourages more growth. More businesses online means more information for people. More people online means incentives to create better networks.
Nutritious use of Internet content: education, research, financial services. If Pakistan gets this right, the growth of the Internet will be more sustainable and more balanced, but even faster. It will be based on the growth of lots of small businesses, rather than a few conglomerates. It will be built by and for the people in emerging markets, and therefore be more useful to them. It will better reflect local culture. It will better reflect local needs. That will make the Internet more valuable and the economy stronger. The demand is there, the only problem is with schools, universities and banks who don’t believe it’s there.
