Study Shows Emerging Markets Twice As Likely to Purchase Technology in 2010

In a recent study released by Accenture, research suggests that consumers in emerging markets are twice as likely to purchase and use consumer technology in the next year than those in developed markets. In addition to the emerging markets willingness to purchase more consumer products, they are also going to be more willing to purchase “environmentally friendly” electronics.

For the study, Accenture surveyed 16,000 consumers in four developed counties, United States, Germany, France and Japan, and four emerging countries China, India, Malaysia and Singapore. The purpose being to identify current and future spending and usage for the most popular devices.

Compared to consumers in developed countries, consumers in emerging countries are:

• More than 2.5 times more likely to buy a smart phone in the upcoming year
• Twice as likely to have bought a computer in the last year
• Significantly more likely (84%) to pay for environmentally friendly products
• Twice as likely to stay connected with people on a social networking site

“One of the reasons for this emerging-country growth is the rapid expansion of the middle class with its substantial disposable income,” said Jean-Laurent Poitou, managing director of Accenture’s Electronics & High Tech industry group. “Furthermore, our research shows that the increased demand for smart connected wireless devices such as smartphones is being driven by social-networking applications.

“Emerging-country consumers use mobile devices more than they do computers to access Internet-enabled applications and services, and consumers in mature countries are also headed in that direction.”

With such definitive results suggesting that emerging nations will be the driving consumer-tech force of 2010 many security issues are raised. Will it become the role of developed nations to police and enforce cyber security or will the burden be left to the countries driving purchasing?