Telstra says the use of smartphones as a payment method is beginning to edge out cash, according to figures it has released from its seventh annual smartphone index, reflecting on a decade of internet-enabled phones.
The telco says more than a third of smartphone users, 31 percent, are now using phones to pay for goods and services in store, with 47 percent of millennials, in particular, adopting pay-by-phone technology in devices to transact.
Telstra said more than 91 percent of mobile users were now using internet-connected devices, and that national data usage on its network had reached 420 petabytes in 2017, a 180-fold increase on the 2.3 petabytes of data consumed over the network in 2008.
Among Telstra's other findings in its Nielsen survey of 2024 users was that 62 percent of active mobile internet users were using social media daily, more than 25 percent of millennials were using their phone to access dating apps and that 81 percent of smartphone owners use them to navigate.
“Since 2007 when Telstra launched Australia’s first consumer smartphone, the Nokia N95, these devices have become central to almost every digital task we carry out, every social connection we make and every piece of entertainment we consume,” said Telstra head of mobile products Kevin Teoh.
“A year later Apple launched iPhone 3G and with its touch screen, app store and gesture control defined what Australians expect from their mobile. It helped to create countless cultural trends – from the selfie to the streaming phenomenon.
“Flash forward to 2017 and Telstra’s research shows smartphone connectivity has become ubiquitous across most of the population and around the clock with almost 8 in ten smartphone users accessing the internet on a daily basis via their smartphone – up from 53 per cent in 2010,” Teoh said.
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