Most Taiwanese spend an average of more than an hour per day on instant-messaging app Line or on Facebook, according to a survey released by Foreseeing Innovative New Digiservices (FIND), a division of the government-sponsored Institute for Information Industry.
The poll suggests that Taiwanese depend on messaging apps and social media for interpersonal communication.
Line and Facebook have become two of the most popular applications among mobile device users in Taiwan, who are averaging about an hour per day on those two apps, said FIND, which conducted the survey last year jointly with Mobile First from Oct. 10 to Oct. 31 among Taiwanese over the age of 11.
Taiwanese have also become used to playing games on their mobile devices, spending 52.6 minutes per day doing so, FIND said, citing the poll, which found that social media and instant messaging, entertainment and gaming apps were the most popular in Taiwan.
This year, Taiwanese spent an average of 132 minutes per day on mobile device apps, with people aged 20 to 34 averaging 2.5 hours per day, the survey found.
FIND said that only about 6.2 percent of users are willing to pay for apps, although 74.4 percent of Taiwanese often download them. The survey showed that the average number of apps downloaded in Taiwan last year fell to 18.7 per person from 22.5 in 2013.
In the over-11 age group, 14.32 million Taiwanese owned smartphones, tablet computers or both in the second half of last year, compared with 1.01 million in the first half, according to FIND.
In the breakdown, it was found that 13.55 million owned smartphones, which represented a penetration rate of 65.4 percent, while 6.04 million had tablet computers, indicating a penetration rate of 29.2 percent, FIND said. It said the penetration rate of tablet computers in the nation is expected to reach almost 40 percent in 2018, but sales of the devices remain under pressure from smartphones.
According to a forecast made by FIND, 7.96 million people aged 12 or older will own tablet computers in 2018, representing a penetration rate of 38.4 percent.
That compares with a penetration rate of 29.2 percent in the second half of last year, when 6.04 million people aged 12 or older in Taiwan owned tablets, and a penetration rate of 25.4 percent in the first half of last year, when there were 5.30 million tablet owners.
The survey, based on 1,068 valid questionnaires, pointed to tablets continuing to gain traction in the future, but there were some negative signs.
The survey found that 6.5 percent of respondents who owned tablets said they had not used their devices in about one month. Of that group, 47.2 percent said they were using their smartphones rather than tablets and 34.9 percent said they did not like tablets because they were too big.
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