Asians more willing to try new technology

Asians have emerged as the most enthusiastic adopters of new and innovative technology products globally, says GfK.

Source: GfK. GfK Asia New Tech Adoption Index for 2018 scores by market.

The New Tech Adoption Index (NTAI)^* highlights Asia’s prominence in driving global new technology advancement; with the region’s high demand fuelling growth in products in selected markets by at least 35% in both volume and value terms in the past year.

The NTAI leverages GfK’s proprietary point-of-sales data to specifically analyse new consumer technology takeup across over 250,000 products in the consumer durables and technology industry across nine Asian and six key European markets. 

 
“To be competitive, more and more brands are introducing products with innovative features or functionality. In order to succeed in their innovation efforts, it is important for brands to understand where they can find their greatest potential of early adopters, who can then create a network effect for their products,” said Vishal Bali, MD for Client Solutions and Innovation, APAC.

“The New Tech Adoption Index can help brands identify these markets, and even pinpoint the specific cities and regions within each market.”

GfK reported a NTAI score of between 46 and 146 for the nine Asian markets, highlighting the differing levels of new technology adoption in the region. The top three markets with the highest overall NTAIs are China (146), Singapore (134) and South Korea (128), while India (46) and Indonesia (67) took their positions at the opposite end of the scale.

The New Tech Adoption Index indicates a market’s propensity in new technology adoption based on how much higher or lower their calculated index is positioned from the baseline of 100. We see an obvious trend of market clustering among the developed and developing markets, whereby NTAIs are higher for the more mature markets, and lower for emerging ones,” observed Bali.

A deeper dive into Asia’s NTAI reveals that 24 of the total 70 cities evaluated in the study showed above-average readings, with the top eight cities all from China (NTAI range: 161-196)—led by Beijing (196) and Shanghai (193). Eight Korean cities followed (NTAI range: 147-156) with Seoul (156), Chungcheong (156) and Incheon (153) showing the highest propensity for new tech adoption. The most diverse market within Asia was Indonesia whose NTAI scores ranged from 33 to 118 with Botabek being the city which sees the highest level of new tech adoption.

According to the report, Asia is a “mobile first” region, with the Essential category as the main driver for NTAI across the region. NTAI for the Freedom category is led by Vietnam where the local population is generally younger, while the mature markets of Korea, China and Singapore exhibit higher NTAIs for the Fun category due to their greater spending power. 

According to another GfK study, nearly two in every three (64%) respondents surveyed in Asia said that they are less loyal to any one brand—a seven percentage point jump from two years ago. In comparison, fewer respondents in US and Europe shared the same sentiments.

Bali said a one-size-fits-all strategy will not work for Asia’s highly diversified and fragmented marketplace. “Instead, focusing on pivotal factors such as perfecting (a brand's) distribution and pricing strategies across different cities and channels, and gaining a good grasp of their different consumers’ needs and adoption behaviours, will significantly up the success rate of new technology brands in the consumer tech and durable space.” 

*The countries covered in the study included Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea in developed Asia and India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, as well as Vietnam in developing Asia. Product groups selected for inclusion in GfK Asia’s New Tech Adoption Index (NTAI) have to meet at least two criteria - quantitative assessment (volume and value of new tech growth exceeding 20% year-on-year in the past two years and/or new tech growth outperforming the product group and qualitative assessment by GfK based on industry knowledge and expertise.

**Product groups from GfK point of sales tracking over 2018 were used as a basis to define new tech:

Fun

Desk computing, headsets, soundbars, mobile computing, plasma and flat TVs.

Comfort

Air treatment, cooling, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, air conditioners

Freedom

Headphones, mobile headsets, Bluetooth and mini speakers, audio home systems, digital cameras, core wearables
 

Essential 

Smart and mobile phones