Gfu study on smart TV usage: YouTube and media library top performers

Flat-screen TVs are almost the standard equipment for the Germans: around 84 per cent of households report in a representative study commissioned by the Gesellschaft für Entertainment- und Kommunikationselektronik (gfu) to own a flat-screen TV. In the spring this figure was still 77 percent. A third (33 percent) of respondents in the spring said they had a device with a diagonal of 42 inches (106 cm) or more. In the meantime, there are 37 per cent who are 42-inch in size.


Fun with smart TV


This year, more than half of the TV sets sold in the United States will be a smart TV. In almost one third of American households, such a model already exists. However, 17 percent say they do not know whether they own a smart TV or device without smart features.


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Comment: Do smart TVs compromise privacy?


Of the smart TV owners say about 41 percent say that their device is not connected to the Internet. This decision is obviously taken very consciously by the majority: around 62 percent of "non-followers" say they do not want Internet services on the TV. An overly complicated connection would amount to 16 per cent. Security concerns have ten per cent, around six per cent have no or no sufficiently fast internet access. The rejection of the internet features on the TV increases with age. People over 60 want to have almost 84 per cent of the internet on the TV, the younger to 40 give it to 55 per cent.


If the smart TV is connected to the network, the functions are usually also called. 49 per cent switch the Internet often or very often, 24 per cent occasionally. Never used is smart TV only by six percent. Top-of-the-line applications are television-type applications. For example, YouTube videos in large format look at almost 38 percent, the media channels of the channels call 34 percent. Photos from digital photo albums look at 28 percent on the TV screen. 20 percent use video or on demand frequently as well as additional information via HbbTV. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are 14 percent, video telephony via Skype 13 percent.