Italy: Mobile phones surpass TVs for 1st time
October 7, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The total number of connected devices in Italy reached 111.8 million at the end of 2018, up by 0.5 per cent on the previous year, for an average of 4,6 devices per household.
According to the annual Auditel-Censis Report, the number of mobile phones (43.6 million, +1.7 per cent) for the first time surpassed the number of TV sets (42.3 million).
Smart TVs were present in 27.5 per cent of Italian households, for a total of 8 million devices (+20.6 per cent), although only 6.5 million are connected to the Internet.
An additional 2.4 million households are equipped with devices that enable normal TV sets to connect to the Web.
Overall, there was a total of 42.3 million TV sets (standard and Smart TV) and 97.7 per cent of Italian households had at least one TV set, for an average of 1.7 per household.
Also, 5.7 million Italians (9.7 per cent) watch live or on-demand TV on screens other than the TV set, a figure that has grown over the years, thanks mainly to children and Millennials.
The Internet penetration rate in households reached 84.5 per cent (82.2 per cent in 2017), of which 49 per cent have both fixed and mobile connections.
The Report is based on Auditel’s Basic Research that polls 20,000 households seven times a year for a total of 41,000 individuals.