Tablet penetration increases almost fivefold in a year, but home laptops still dominate

Fiona Booth, Research Manager, looks at the changes in how we're getting online

According to new data from our 2012 Consumer Connection System, 12% of GB households now own an iPad or tablet PC, an increase of 469% on 2011.

However, the home laptop is still king. 48% of adults surveyed by CCS claimed to go online daily/most days on their home laptop. Home desktops, PC or Mac, came second with 31% accessing the internet this way. The third most popular method of getting online was from work, at 28%.

Mobile phone internet access hovers just outside the top three, with 24% of adults surveyed going online daily/most days via their mobile, blackberry or iPhone. Amongst younger demographics, however, this shoots right up. 42% of 15-24s and 41% of 25-34s access the internet through mobile phones, making them the 2nd and 3rd most popular ways of getting online for the respective age breaks.

With 6% of adults surveyed accessing the internet via their iPad or tablet PC daily/most days, tablets still have a way to go yet before they catch up. Again, it’s the younger demographics that are the early adopters with 10% of 25-34’s surfing on their tablet daily/most days.

Motivations for using iPad or tablet PCs also varies by age break. 15-24’s are most likely to be motivated to use theirs for entertainment, 25-34’s for a treat/reward, 35-44’s to give them something to talk about, 45-54s to check out prices/products/services, 55-64s to learn things, whilst 65-75s are most likely to be motivated to use theirs to communicate with others.

All figures are sourced from Consumer Connection System 2012, our own survey of 11,000 GB adults.