Changes are afoot, however, as consumers seek out the entertainment option that makes the most sense for them. The number of homes subscribing to wired cable has decreased 4.1 percent in the past year at the same time that telephone company-provided and satellite TV have seen increases of 21.1 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

Broadcast-Only/Broadband Homes in Focus
Though less than 5 percent of TV households, homes with broadband Internet and free, broadcast TV are on the rise—growing 22.8 percent over last year. These households are also found to exhibit interesting video behaviors: they stream video twice as much as the general population and watch half as much TV.

Whether they’re cord-cutters or former broadcast-only homes that upgraded to Internet service, these homes represent a very small but growing group of U.S. consumers. Interestingly, roughly the same percentage of consumers in broadcast-only/broadband homes watch traditional TV, stream or use the Internet as in all cross-platform homes; the difference between these groups falls to time spent on these activities. Even broadcast-only/broadband homes spend the majority of their video time watching traditional TV: 122.6 minutes, compared to 11.2 for streaming on average each day.

“While Europe’s challenging economic conditions in the second half of 2011 bought renewed vulnerability and fragility to consumers and financial markets globally, some of the most positive news last quarter came from the world’s two largest economies—the U.S. and China—where confidence rebounded to Q1 2011 levels,” said Dr. Venkatesh Bala, Chief Economist at The Cambridge Group, a part of Nielsen. “Buoyant domestic consumption also maintained confidence levels in the large emerging economies of India, Indonesia and Brazil. However, slowing GDP growth within emerging economies and inflationary pressures would suggest some degree of caution for the year ahead.”

The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions, established in 2005, tracks consumer confidence, major concerns and spending intentions among more than 28,000 Internet consumers in 56 countries. Consumer confidence levels above and below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism and pessimism.

Personal finances are improved, but spending is still restrained

More than half (52%) of global online consumers described their personal finances for 2012 as excellent/good, up from 50 percent in Q3 2011, but 65 percent indicated it is not a good time to buy, up one percent from the previous quarter.

“Overall, consumer discretionary spending will remain restrained and cautious in the first half of 2012,” said Dr. Bala. “Despite consumers becoming more confident about their personal finances for the year ahead, there is still a reluctance to spend, especially in the West; rising tensions in the Middle East and their impact on gasoline prices could further compound global consumer concerns and spending plans,” added Dr. Bala.

Consumer concern for the economy increased as a top fear among 18 percent of global respondents—an increase of six points from last quarter, which resulted in nearly two-thirds (64%) of consumers around the world indicating they believe they are in a recession, up from 62 percent last quarter. A growing number of online respondents in Asia Pacific (53%), Europe (74%), Middle East/Africa (74%) and Latin America (47%) indicated they believe they are in a recession. And while 86 percent of North Americans feel they are in a recession, it was the only region to report an improvement from 88 percent in third quarter.

• For more detail and insight, download Nielsen’s Q4 2011 Consumer Confidence report.

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Patriots have more online visitors, but Giants fans run up web stats

During the run up to the playoffs in December 2011, the Patriots had 644,000 unique visitors to their official website, topping the Giants’ 574,000 visitors. However, Giants fans were more engaged when visiting their team’s website, viewing nearly twice as many pages (17 page views per person) compared to Patriots visitors, and spending over 10 minutes each on average.

Super Bowl buzz: Giants fans cheer more for team, Tom Brady is MVP of social media

Fans’ excitement throughout the playoffs carried over to social media. The Giants had more buzz about their team each week, with a 59 percent share of buzz compared to the Patriots’ 41 percent of buzz volume on blogs, message boards/forums, public posts on Twitter and Facebook and online news posts.  But Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady surpassed Giants QB Eli Manning, with nearly double the amount of buzz.

With half of respondents claiming to be overweight, it’s logical that half (48%) are also trying to lose weight. And for more than three-quarters (78%) of these consumers, the way to shed unwanted pounds is through diet. But do consumers understand what they are eating? Not necessarily. The study finds that half (52%) of consumers around the world understand nutritional information panels on food packaging only in part. Four-of-10 consumers understand nutritional labels “mostly” and seven percent say they do not understand them at all.

And what about trust—do consumers believe that claims on product packaging are accurate and truthful? Here too is ambiguity in the minds of consumers. Of 10 different product claims studied, only three received a complete believability rating by more than 20 percent of consumers (calorie content 33%, vitamin content 28% and fat claims 23%), highlighting a need to better educate consumers.

Support for Calorie Counts on Restaurant Menus

Consumers around the world show support for calorie counts on restaurant menus, with half (49%) of global respondents reporting that fast food restaurants should always include calorie information on menus, and 31 percent indicating that fast food restaurants should sometimes do so. Twenty percent of global online consumers think fast food menus should never include calorie data.

Consumers around the world have healthy eating on their minds and consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers have an opportunity to help. Consumer-friendly nutritional labeling can be a powerful marketing tool as consumers are hungry for easy-to-understand information. Clearly there is a need and an opportunity for more education to help reduce the skepticism that is apparent around all parts of the globe. And there is a need to offer tasty and healthful options to satisfy both the mind and body.

• For more country-by-country insight and a look at healthy eating trends around the world, download Nielsen’s Global Report on Food Labeling Trends.

Android continues to hold the lead among all smartphone users, with 46.3 percent of all smartphone owners surveyed in Q42011 reporting they have an Android-based mobile phone.

As of Q42011, 46 percent of US mobile consumers had smartphones, and that figure is growing quickly. In fact, 60 percent of those who said they got a new device within the last three months chose a smartphone over a feature phone.

For more, check out Nielsen’s Mobile Media Report.

Among tablet and smartphone users who downloaded only free apps in the past month, 33 percent chose games, 20 percent chose social networking and 18 percent chose music. However, app downloaders are willing to shell out money. Consumers who downloaded just paid apps or a combination of free and paid apps invested the most in games (35%), maps/navigation (29%) and music (27%).

For additional insights on consumer electronics and media usage, download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

For more insights on usage and trends across TV, mobile, online, and social media download Nielsen’s State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report.

While Internet usage is moving toward maturity and online activities are ingrained in consumers’ everyday lives, a new dimension is rapidly expanding—that of Internet-capable mobile devices, including smartphones, tablet computers, eBook readers, connected games devices or other hybrid forms likely to emerge in the near future. The upcoming year’s anticipated surge of mobile device ownership, particularly smartphones, will have a profound impact on the digital behavior of Hong Kong consumers.

Mobile Application – The Rising Trend
Almost nine-in-ten (86%) Hong Kong digital consumers who have accessed the Internet via their mobile phones have downloaded an app (application) to their phones. And following the footprint of smartphones, tablets are another potential game changer, but the larger screen size is attracting a slightly different pattern of behavior.

On-demand, anytime, anywhere access to the Internet is also impacting social media use, which has revolutionized the way consumers communicate, share information, entertain themselves and others, socialize, form relationships and source information. Social media has provided more customer touch points, more methods of content and communication distribution and more information about customers and their preferences.

For more detail and insight, download Nielsen’s Hong Kong Digital Behavior Insights report.

Key findings:

• The majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively);
• The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days;
• The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since 2010;
• 87 percent of app downloaders (those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days) have used deal-of-the-day websites like Groupon or Living Social;
• Younger groups text the most. In Q3, teens 13-17 sent and received the most text messages (an average of 3,417 each month).

This report draws from a broad range of Nielsen data sources, including: Nielsen’s in-depth monthly surveys of mobile consumers (more than 300,000 consumers surveyed each year); Device metering data from the iOS and Android smartphones of thousands of consumers who have volunteered to be a part of our research panel; detailed, monthly analysis of the cellphone bills for 65,000 lines in the U.S., again, thanks to volunteer panelists.

For more, download State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report Q3 2011.

Messaging remains the centerpiece of mobile teen behavior.  The number of messages exchanged monthly (SMS and MMS) hit 3,417 per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour.  Teen females are holding the messaging front, sending and receiving 3,952 messages per month versus 2,815 from males.  Aside from messaging, data heavy activities such as mobile internet, social networking, email, app downloads, and app usage are the most popular mobile activities.

Teens are not focused on making calls via their mobile phones. Voice usage has declined the most among this group, from an average of 685 minutes to 572 minutes. When surveyed, the top three reasons teens said that they prefer messaging to calling was because it is faster (22 percent), easier (21 percent), and more fun (18 percent).

For more mobile insights, download State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report Q3 2011.