Pandemic-driven online adoption habits to be future norm: Ericsson

The move to handling essential elements of everyday life online, prompted by the Global Covid-19 pandemic, will remain a fundamental reality for people around the world long after the pandemic has passed, a comprehensive new consumer report by Ericsson predicts.

Called The Future Urban Reality, the Ericsson ConsumerLab report is Ericsson’s largest consumer study to date. It reveals key insights about what consumers believe will happen beyond the pandemic to the year 2025.

Representing the equivalent opinions of 2.3 billion consumers across 31 markets worldwide, the report predicts that consumers will not only continue to manage routine activities - such as remote work, e-learning, e-health and online grocery shopping - online but will also add an average of 2.5 new services. The report predicts that consumers will instead prioritize their leisure time to travel more, practice mindful living and spend time with friends and family.

As a result of increased online activities, consumers are predicted to spend, on average, an extra ten hours per week online when they enter the next normal. This move is also expected to close the gap between moderate and advanced online users, with the more moderate online users having introduced more online services in their daily life over the course of the pandemic.

Zeynep Ahmet, Senior Researcher, ConsumerLab, Ericsson Research, says: “Throughout the pandemic, information and communication technologies (ICT) have become the key means for consumers to manage many aspects in their everyday lives. Our latest findings suggest that this will continue well into the ‘next normal’ and beyond. This trend can support consumers to prioritize more of the important things in life, whether that is spending more time with loved ones or leading a healthier lifestyle. As an enabler of new online habits, it is clear that both mobile networks and digital inclusion efforts will play a crucial role in building tomorrow’s resilient, inclusive and equal societies.”