Consumers in Northern Ireland are among the most enthusiastic consumers of communications technology in the UK, according to findings from Ofcom’s annual Communications Market Report.
Ninety two per cent of Northern Ireland residents use a mobile phone and of those people, almost a quarter have a smartphone.
Furthermore, Northern Ireland leads the way across the UK for sending text messages (93%), taking photos with a mobile (71%), sending photo messages (64%) and playing games on their phone (31%).
The use of social networking has doubled since 2008, with 47% of people now using these sites regularly (compared to 22% in 2008).
People in Northern Ireland are also increasingly going online for everyday needs and tasks.
Since 2008, broadband penetration in Northern Ireland has risen to 75% from 52% due to extensive investment in telecoms infrastructure by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and from BT and other operators.
The report finds that, with a year to go before the analogue TV signal is switched off in 2012, 90% of TV homes already have digital TV on their main set (compared to 96% overall in the UK).
Pay for television is at 66% against the UK average 57% due to increase in popularity of multichannel TV and broadband bundles.
BBC NI and UTV’s combined spend on TV programmes is down from £26m in 2009 to £24m in 2010.
However, the combined number of TV hours produced for Northern Ireland viewers rose to 1,007 hours, representing an increase of 4%points on last year’s report.
Radio continues to be a popular medium in Northern Ireland, with 22% of people saying it is their primary source of news – the highest proportion in any of the UK nations.
Mobile phone take-up is highest in Northern Ireland, with 92% of people owning a mobile phone (compared to 91% in the UK).
Sixty five per cent of Northern Ireland residents use pre-pay or Pay-As-You-Go mobiles.
Ofcom Northern Ireland director Jonathan Rose said over the last five years they have seen Northern Ireland catch up, and in some cases overtake, the rest of the UK in the use of the latest communications services.
