Tag: #report

Revolut Report: May marked start of summer of sport as consumer spending rose

Revolut, the global financial app with more than 40 million customers worldwide, and now over 2.8 million in Ireland, has crunched the numbers on Irish consumer spending over the last month, with the app’s own data revealing that fair weather and an upcoming summer of sport saw a spike in consumer spending across the country.

With the GAA All-Ireland Championship, Irish Rugby’s tour of South Africa, The Open Golf Championship, and the Paris 2024 Olympics all now coming into view, Revolut’s consumer spending analysis tracked nearly 55m card payments in May, indicating real-world spending trends by Ireland’s Revolut account holders, who made close to €1.25bn in card payments across the month — a rise of 7.95% (MoM increase) with figures adjusted for user growth.

The May sunshine sparked a significant increase in consumer spending on sports clubs, which jumped by close to 22% (MoM increase), a rise of more than 70% (YoY increase) when compared with the same period last year. Similarly, parents are paying out more this year for sports and recreation camps for their children compared to last, rising by 7.5% (YoY increase).

Sports apparel and sporting goods stores were the beneficiaries, with spending up more than 13% and 12% respectively (MoM increases). Meanwhile, consumers in Ireland were hitting the gym more often in May, with outlays on health and gym memberships rising by close to 20% (MoM increase) and over 23% (YoY increase).

May’s fair weather also saw Revolut customers flock back to the golf club, with expenditure on courses rising over 20% (MoM increase), likely inspired by The Masters in April and the upcoming Open Championship later this summer.

Maurice Murphy, General Manager at Revolut Bank UAB – Ireland Branch, said: “With now more than 2.8m customers across Ireland, we are able to draw genuine consumer spending insights from a data pool that represents over half the country. It’s therefore great to see a noteworthy rise in both general and sports-related expenditure, with our customers clearly inspired by the summer that’s ahead of us. Revolut supports customers with their health and fitness, with up to 20 credits for ClassPass and a digital personal trainer through Freeletics available via certain paid plans, providing greater access to gyms and fitness studios.”

Revolut was recently recognised by financial comparison site Bonkers.ie as ‘Ireland’s Best Consumer Business’ and ‘provider of the Best Current Account’, whilst it ranked 9th as part of the Ireland RepTrak® 2024 study earlier this year.

For more information, visit: www.revolut.com/en-IE

HP Catches Cyber criminals ‘Cat-Phishing’ Users

 HP Ireland today issued its quarterly HP Wolf Security Threat Insights Report, showing attackers are relying on open redirects, overdue invoice lures, and Living-off-the-Land (LotL) techniques to sneak past defences. The report provides an analysis of real-world cyberattacks, helping organisations to keep up with the latest techniques cybercriminals use to evade detection and breach PCs in the fast-changing cybercrime landscape.

Based on data from millions of endpoints running HP Wolf Security, notable campaigns identified by HP threat researchers include:

  • Attackers using open redirects to ‘Cat-Phish’ users: In an advanced WikiLoader campaign, attackers exploited open redirect vulnerabilities within websites to circumvent detection. Users were directed to trustworthy sites, often through open redirect vulnerabilities in ad embeddings. They were then redirected to malicious sites – making it almost impossible for users to detect the switch.
  • Living-off-the-BITS: Several campaigns abused the Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) – a legitimate mechanism used by programmers and system administrators to download or upload files to web servers and file shares. This LotL technique helped attackers remain undetected by using BITS to download the malicious files.
  • Fake invoices leading to HTML smuggling attacks: HP identified threat actors hiding malware inside HTML files posing as delivery invoices which, once opened in a web browser, unleash a chain of events deploying open-source malware, AsyncRAT. Interestingly, the attackers paid little attention to the design of the lure, suggesting the attack was created with only a small investment of time and resources.

Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher in the HP Wolf Security threat research team, comments:

“Targeting companies with invoice lures is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it can still be very effective and hence lucrative. Employees working in finance departments are used to receiving invoices via email, so they are more likely to open them. If successful, attackers can quickly monetise their access by selling it to cybercriminal brokers, or by deploying ransomware.”

By isolating threats that have evaded detection-based tools – but still allowing malware to detonate safely – HP Wolf Security has specific insight into the latest techniques used by cybercriminals. To date, HP Wolf Security customers have clicked on over 40 billion email attachments, web pages, and downloaded files with no reported breaches.

The report details how cybercriminals continue to diversify attack methods to bypass security policies and detection tools. Other findings include:

  • At least 12% of email threats identified by HP Sure Click* bypassed one or more email gateway scanners.
  • The top threat vectors in Q1 were email attachments (53%), downloads from browsers (25%) and other infection vectors, such as removable storage – like USB thumb drives – and file shares (22%).
  • This quarter, at least 65% of document threats relied on an exploit to execute code, rather than macros.

Val Gabriel, Managing Director at HP Ireland, comments:

“Living-off-the-Land techniques expose the flaws of relying on detection alone as try sneak past defences. As they are using legitimate tools, it can be difficult to spot threats without throwing up a lot of disruptive false positives. Threat containment provides protection even when detection fails, preventing malware from destroying user data or credentials, and preventing attacker persistence.  This is why organisations should take a defence-in-depth approach to security, isolating and containing high-risk activities to reduce their attack surface.”

HP Wolf Security runs risky tasks in isolated, hardware-enforced disposable virtual machines running on the endpoint to protect users, without impacting their productivity. It also captures detailed traces of attempted infections. HP’s application isolation technology mitigates threats that slip past other security tools and provides unique insights into intrusion techniques and threat actor behaviour.

About the data

This data was gathered from consenting HP Wolf Security customers from January-March 2024.

New Engineers Ireland report projects 6,000 jobs in 2024

6,000 engineering jobs are projected to be created in Ireland in 2024, according to a new report by Engineers Ireland.

While the employers surveyed in the report acknowledged there are skills gaps in the profession, respondents indicated there are 722 current vacancies in the engineering sector.

The report ‘Engineering 2024: A Barometer of the Profession in Ireland’ was launched today as part of Engineers Week 2024, the annual campaign that highlights the diverse world of engineering to primary and secondary school children.

The engineering industry is optimistic about the prospects of the industry here, with 71% of engineering directors and managers planning to recruit engineers in 2024, a signal of confidence of growth. 68% of engineering employers stated that their financial position improved during 2023, compared to the previous year.

The public also had a positive outlook on the sector, according to the report, with 86% believing that there are plenty of jobs in engineering, while 85% believed engineering to be a financially rewarding career.

Flexibility with regard to remote working also appears to be growing across the industry, with 79% of engineering employers expecting a hybrid model of working, with greater ability to work from home, site and the office as required, to be the norm this year, up eight percentage points from last year.

This year’s report also found that 75% of the public believes that engineers are critical to combating climate change and biodiversity loss. In 2023, 26% of all Engineers Ireland CPD events had a sustainability focus and, in April 2023, Engineers Ireland became the first organisation outside of the UK to be licensed by the Society for the Environment to award the Chartered Environmentalist title.

Speaking about the report, Damien Owens, Director General of Engineers Ireland, said: “Engineering is not merely a career, it is a vocation that intertwines with the very fabric of our nation. It is critical to ensuring that our infrastructure, our economy, and our public services can support living standards and growth – from clean water supplies and safe buildings to renewable energy and new manufacturing technologies. Our work extends beyond blueprints and equations – it touches lives, transforms communities, and safeguards our future.

He continued: “The Irish engineering landscape is teeming with opportunities and demand for engineers in this country greatly outstrips supply. As we celebrate Engineers Week 2024, there is a great sense among the public that engineering offers a positive career path for young people, with interesting work, plenty of jobs, and financial rewards, but the reality is the number of students studying STEM subjects and moving into third-level engineering and technology sectors needs to be much larger to meet our country’s current and future skills needs.”

For more information, see www.engineersireland.ie.

Half of Irish people have used AI in their personal life but are hesitant to use it in the workplace

Almost half of Irish people (44%) say they have experimented with AI or use it regularly for personal use, according to a new report by Dye & Durham, the leading provider of practice management solutions to legal professionals. The Dye & Durham Ireland Pulse Report for Q4 2023, a survey of 1,001 adults in Ireland conducted by YouGov, explores trends in technology, the economy and the property market.

While Irish consumers are embracing AI in their personal lives, they are more hesitant to use it in their professional lives, with 35% saying they have experimented with or regularly use AI for professional reasons. The remaining 65% say they have never used AI for professional use.

Despite hesitant adoption of AI for professional use, more than three quarters of Irish workers (79%) say technology plays an important or critical role in their day-to-day work. Nearly half (44%) expect AI to become important to the way they do their jobs in the next five years while less than a quarter (23%) are of the opposite opinion. Other technologies expected to emerge as key to their jobs include cloud computing (59% say it will be important), analytics (57%), and 5G (56%).

When it comes to technology’s role in the provision of government services, more than half (58%) of Irish consumers say government agencies would benefit from incorporating more technology into their services when asked to choose from a list. Similarly, 53% say the same of doctors / medical practitioners, while 44% and 38% say financial services and lawyers/conveyancers would benefit, respectively.

David Nash, Chief Product Officer at Dye & Durham, says: “We’re seeing an interesting adoption pattern when it comes to emerging technologies in Ireland. When it comes to AI, for example, there is broad recognition of its impact on the way we do our jobs, but people are taking an incremental approach to using it themselves, especially for professional purposes.”

“For our customers in the legal sector, this is a very important trend to watch. Their clients are engaging with new technologies and expecting them to take on a bigger role in their lives over time. That has clear implications for how legal services will be delivered in the future.”

 Near-term economic outlook is positive but nearly half expect a recession in next 12 months

 The Q4 2023 Ireland Pulse Report also reveals that Irish consumers have a generally positive economic outlook over the near term, with just over half (51%) saying they don’t expect a recession in the next six months. They are also more optimistic about their financial situations than they were in Q3 2023. More respondents (26%) say they’re in a better financial position than they were a year ago (vs. 19% who said the same in Q3 2023). At the same time, fewer respondents (39% in Q4 2023 vs. 48% in Q3 2023) say they are in a worse financial position than they were a year ago.

On the other hand, as they look further ahead, more consumers (48%) are expecting a recession in the next 12 months. But just 24% expect to be in a worse financial situation a year from now, and fewer (6% in Q4 2023 vs. 10% in Q3 2023) plan to hold off on property purchasing plans to wait for lower prices.

Martha Vallance, Chief Operating Officer at Dye & Durham, says: “Our Pulse Report for Q4 2023 shows encouraging signs when it comes to how Irish consumers are feeling about the economy as a whole. This is good news for small and medium-sized law firms who have been managing through reduced case volume. As consumer optimism grows, so too does the opportunity to capitalize on increased transaction activity. Forward-looking law firms who invest in operational efficiencies now stand to gain the most from these positive indicators.”

CEOs forecast increase in revenues, profits and deal making in 2024, as AI adoption moves up the agenda

CEOs around the globe are optimistic about their ability to drive revenue growth and profitability in 2024 despite global economic challenges, according to the latest EY CEO Outlook Pulse survey.

The EY quarterly survey of 1,200 global CEOs on their prospects, challenges and opportunities, shows they are bullish on business performance for 2024 with a significant majority expecting an increase in revenue growth (64%) and profitability (63%).

Furthermore, 41% of Global CEOs, say they will be prioritising widespread adoption of AI technologies to drive efficiencies and improve business performance, while three in four (76%) agree the technology will have little impact on revenue growth at this time, viewing it as a strategic necessity rather than an immediate driver of revenues.

The optimism for success comes despite acknowledgement of a continued challenging macroeconomic environment with three-quarters (76%) of CEOs surveyed expecting the global economy to continue to endure low or no growth and over half (57%) forecasting an increase in the cost of business.

Graham Reid, Head of Tax & Law and Clients & Markets at EY Ireland, says:

“Even though CEOs are expecting slower growth in the global economy, this hasn’t dampened their confidence. Mirroring trends that we are seeing here in Ireland CEOs globally are seeking opportunities to drive efficiencies, transform their business for growth and to harness the potential of Artificial Intelligence. While Ireland’s economy has not been immune to global macroeconomic trends over recent years, businesses here – whether indigenous or multinational – have handled this uncertain trading environment remarkably well and are now looking ahead with increasing confidence to the future.”

 

Lift-off for deals market in 2024

CEOs are anticipating a deals market bounce-back with eight in 10 (79%) respondents predicting an uptick in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) megadeals above US$10bn. Thirty-six percent of respondents are also actively pursuing M&A transactions over the next 12 months and a further 29% are seeking divestments. The US maintained its position as the most attractive target region in terms of M&A activity followed by Japan, the United Kingdom, China and India. Manufacturing was identified as the top sector for M&A deals closely followed by ‘banking and capital markets’, ‘insurance’, ‘consumer products’ and ‘mobility’ rounding up the top five.

This quarter, the survey also captured the perspectives of 300 private equity (PE) leaders across more than 20 countries, regarding their investment and portfolio management outlook. Mirroring CEO sentiment, the majority of surveyed PE leaders (71%) also predict an uptick in megadeals. Seventy percent of surveyed PE leaders predict an increase in corporate divestment or carve out activity in 2024, signifying a more buoyant deals market than seen in the previous year.

Graham Reid says, “Many CEOs globally are revisiting their business transformation plans, scanning for smart investments and laying the groundwork for potential alliances as the M&A market now begins to show signs of recovery.”

Transformation plans speed up, with a focus on efficiencies 

Underpinning the rise in CEO confidence is a rush toward strategic transformation, 58% of CEOs surveyed are accelerating their business transformation agendas – a significant leap, almost tripling from 21% in July 2023. In stark contrast, only 5% now report having no transformation plans, a fall from 37% in July 2023. Nevertheless, despite the bullish sentiment, CEOs are demonstrating pragmatism in their approach to business transformation. Primary focus areas include efficiency enhancements and cost management strategies.

Graham Reid says, “If 2023 was the year of transition as organisations grappled with a series of crises, 2024 is shaping up to be the year of action. With an acceptance that the costs of doing business are unlikely to fall to pre-pandemic levels, we’re seeing a shift in how CEOs approach business transformation, balancing optimism with pragmatism and focusing on efficiency and cost management.”

Geopolitical risks take centre stage in bumper year for elections

With over half of the world’s population going to the voting booth over the next 12 months, CEOs are acutely aware of geopolitical risks and the potential business impact. Over three-quarters of those surveyed (78%) are worried about the potential rise of populist movements to increase geopolitical uncertainty and create business challenges. Seventy-six percent of respondents were also concerned about the political misuse of AI in major 2024 elections.

While many CEOs feel confident about their organisation’s ability to integrate geopolitical turbulence into their decision-making, nearly half (48%) of respondents believe there is room for improvement in their defined and active processes for managing geopolitical risks. In fact, 98% of CEOs and PE leaders surveyed are having to make alterations to their investment plans including exiting certain businesses (32% of CEO respondents and 38% of PE respondents) or delaying a planned investment (42% of CEO respondents and 32% of PE respondents).

Graham Reid says, “The influence of the political world on the corporate world is as strong as ever, but this year we’re seeing another risk emerge – the rise of AI in political campaigning and the potential for its misuse. CEOs are well aware of the need to integrate geopolitical turbulence in their strategic plans. But with many still unsure about their AI risk management processes, now is the time to revisit and refine strategies to help them navigate the business landscape that continues to be volatile and unpredictable.”

To read the full report, please visit: ey.com/CEOOutlook.

Jabra’s Study at the LSE Behavioural Lab Highlights Critical Role of Technology in Boosting Collaboration in Meetings

Globally, there are over 572 million knowledge workers*, and each week, billions of hours are spent in online meetings. Yet many of these meetings are held in settings that are not at all supportive for collaboration or productivity. In Jabra’s recent Hybrid Ways of Working 2023 Global Report, only 15% of employees say that all of their office’s meeting rooms are equipped with video cameras for online meetings, and around 60% of knowledge workers still rely on built-in laptop cameras and microphones. This begs the question: how much is the technology we’re using impacting our behaviour in meetings and our ability to collaborate effectively?

Answering that question has taken over a year of work by Jabra using state-of-the-art facilities to study human behaviour in a controlled environment at the Behavioural Lab at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The study, ‘Meeting Great Expectations: Behaviour, Emotion and Trust’, sought to understand the biopsychological impacts of the technology we use in our day-to-day work, and how it affects collaboration and inclusion in meetings.

Professional meeting technology is key to meeting equity

Meeting experiences are holistic and need to factor in all participants. When we first made the shift to remote work during the pandemic, most organisations provided employees with headsets and webcams for online meetings. However, the quality of this technology varied and was oftentimes inadequate. In fact, only 19% of knowledge workers** are using a personal, professional webcam.

Looking into how technology impacts the quality each person can access a meeting, and how much an equal playing field impacted everyone’s overall collaboration perceptions, the study observed significant improvements when everyone in a meeting uses professional Jabra equipment, when compared to using the nearest competitor’s video bar or built-in laptop audio and video. There was a 27% increase in clarity, 16% more trust, 35% greater expressiveness, and a 47% perceived improvement in the quality of input.

Additionally, remote workers often face the greatest challenges with technology in hybrid meetings. When armed with professional headsets and cameras, the research saw overall call clarity improved by 18% among remote workers, while meeting room participants also rated remote users 32% higher in terms of expressiveness. Meeting room participants also showed nearly twice (84%) the perceived level of engagement when comparing hybrid workers using professional equipment with those on laptop with built-in hardware. Furthermore, remote participants also trusted others joining remotely 22% more when using professional technology. These findings highlighted the increased levels to which remote workers can show up and contribute to hybrid meetings, and the advantages technology can provide them.

Meeting room equipment directly improves remote users meeting experience

We’ve all been in that situation where we join a meeting remotely while everyone else is in the office. It can be frustrating – you might struggle to hear what’s being said, not be able to see everyone in the room, and sometimes feel overlooked. But what if having the right tools could make you feel more present and included?

The study found that when people used professional technology both in the meeting room and remotely, those joining remotely reported a 56% improvement in the quality of conference room contributions. While nothing can quite replace face-to-face interaction, the second-highest ratings for collaboration, right after in-person meetings, came from remote participants rating conference room users equipped with professional video gear.

These findings highlight that technology can bridge the gap between meeting participants separated by physical distance. In summary, it’s clear that high-quality in-room technology significantly enhances the experience for remote participants. Any business aiming for inclusive meetings should prioritise updating their meeting spaces to support fair collaboration.

Holger Reisinger, SVP at Jabra said, “High-quality technology has a profound impact on the effectiveness of remote collaboration. Our research demonstrates that when businesses invest in professional equipment for both in-room and remote participants, they can achieve remarkable improvements. These findings underscore the pivotal role of technology in optimising meeting experiences and fostering successful hybrid collaboration.”

Dr Simon Noyce, British Chartered Psychologist, Lead Project Researcher said, “In today’s world of hybrid meetings, bridging the gap between in-person and remote collaboration has never been more important. Our aim is to encourage businesses to harness this technology to enable meaningful interactions that come as close as possible to the richness of face-to-face engagement.”

Download a copy of the full report here: jabra.com/lse

*Jabra’s Global Knowledge Worker Survey, 2023

**Jabra U&A Collaboration Study, 2022

Almost two-thirds of digital leaders say AI and cloud investment can increase performance and profitability

Digital leaders are confident that embracing technology across all facets of their business is bringing productivity gains, with nearly two-thirds (63%) surveyed reporting an increase in their profitability or performance by using XaaS in the past 24 months according to the KPMG global tech report. This new report, which surveyed more than 2,100 technology executives, explores the technology strategies employed by organisations across the globe as they embark on the next stage of their digital transformation journeys. It also examines the opportunity presented by emerging technology to drive value and gain a competitive edge during a sustained period of unprecedented market volatility.

Profit, performance and leadership

Respondents see technology investment driving profit or performance improvements of more than 10 percent, up from last year’s most common rate of improvement of around 2.5 percent. Buy-in across leadership for deploying emerging tools and technologies has more than tripled, with the top three areas of investment being artificial intelligence, data and analytics and Xaas.

“The survey results about AI echo the anecdotal sentiment among our client base. The biggest threat to many organisations’ digital transformation ambition is linked to poor collaboration across teams, so leadership and management style can also play a key role,” said Liam Cotter, Technology Practice Lead, KPMG in Ireland.

Advancing ESG priorities

Almost half of respondents (48 percent) agree that advancing their ESG priorities will be a primary innovation goal for their technology functions over the next two years; this is consistent regionally with 53 percent in ASPAC, 46 percent in the Americas and 47 percent in EMA.

Achieving short-term goals

Among those leading businesses where investment in technology is driving confidence and profitability most quickly, AI and machine learning are even bigger priorities. More than two-thirds (68 percent) say these technologies will be vital in helping them to achieve their short-term business goals, compared with 57 percent of the total sample.

The biggest threat to many organisations’ digital transformation ambition is linked to poor collaboration across teams – often due to negative work culture and poor communication. Nine in ten respondents think collaboration with the wider business would be stronger if their tech function were more diverse.

Exploring emerging technologies’ potential

This year, 96 percent of the leaders (the top 15 percent of those surveyed) say their technology function can help the enterprise confidently explore emerging technologies’ potential, compared with 81 percent of businesses overall. Two-thirds of these leaders have reached at least the implementation stage on projects connected to emerging technologies, XaaS, data and analytics, AI, and automation, compared with less than half of the total respondent base.

With 72 percent of digital leaders recording improvements in employee productivity from digital transformation, compared with only 48 percent of the other businesses, the potential benefits are huge. Seventy-one percent say they have enhanced customer engagement, compared with 49 percent.

For more information, visit our website: www.kpmg.ie/techreport2023

Fairphone calls on smartphone industry to embrace true sustainability with its 2022 Impact Report

Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise building a market for ethical smartphones, has released its 2022 Impact Report, showcasing the company’s progress towards a more sustainable electronics industry for both people and planet.

The annual report highlights the most recent developments across all four of Fairphone’s core areas of impact, including device longevity and the avoidance of electronic waste, the sourcing of fair and recycled materials, as well as the company’s ongoing efforts to improve the working conditions of people in the supply chain.

It also shows that Fairphone was able to achieve all its targets for 2022 in the different impact areas – a first time milestone. Overall, in 2022 these efforts resulted in avoiding 999 tons of CO2 and 15 tons of electronic waste, with over 54,000 people benefitting (adding up to over 83,000 people since 2017) from Fairphone’s measures.

In a preface to the report, Fairphone CEO Eva Gouwens emphasizes that swift action is needed to bring about change in the electronics industry, calling on industry peers to stop delaying reforms and to follow Fairphone’s example to embrace true sustainability, meaning the well-being of both the planet and its people.

Some other highlights of this year’s report include:

  • Being profitable for the third year in a row, despite a difficult market situation.
  • In 2022, 40% of Fairphone’s 14 focus materials could be sourced from fair or recycled sources, meeting the company’s targets for 2022.
  • A worker in the Fairphone 4 final assembly factory received almost an extra month of salary through Fairphone’s living wage program. In total, 305,000 USD was paid to factory workers of Fairphone’s suppliers in 2022 to support living wages in the supply chain. This includes the workers of an indirect component supplier, an industry first.
  • Fairphone co-developed a pilot project on Fairmined Gold Credits that was applied to account for part of the gold used in the Fairphone 4 and Fairphone’s TWS earbuds.
  • Fairphone made significant progress towards reducing the company’s carbon footprint. Committing to reach net zero by 2045 – five years ahead of the suggested timeframe – Fairphone successfully reduced Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by the end of 2022.

The full report, as well as a summary document highlighting the most important takeaways, can be found here.

This year has seen a 50% rise in the penetration of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets with 11% of respondents now owning the hardware

This year has seen a continued increase in the ownership of games consoles. The rate of ownership has risen from 34% of respondents in 2020 to 41% in 2022. The penetration of VR headsets has also risen to 11% of respondents in 2022, a new Deloitte study shows.

17% of those respondents between 18- and 24-year-olds own a VR headset, and 57% of the same age group know something about the metaverse.  One of the challenges to the penetration of VR technology is the cost of the hardware. One in four of the respondents found the costs to be prohibitive.

The metaverse

One of the largest developments in the virtual reality space, the metaverse – a digital world in which a person can control an avatar and interact with the avatars of others remains an underdeveloped concept for Irish consumers. The term hit mainstream only 12 months ago and 65% of people have heard of it with 35% at least familiar with what the metaverse is.  However, again the 18–24-year-old category are more aware, with 57% of them knowing something about the metaverse.

John Kehoe Deloitte Partner in Audit and Assurance (Technology, Media and Telecom) said: “The concept of a metaverse has been thrust into mainstream media in the past year, with younger people being more familiar with what it is.

“Interestingly awareness is different between men and women, with 44% of men knowing something about the metaverse compared to 26% of women. There are also significant differences in the age demographics, with 57% of 18-24 year olds knowing something about it, compared to just 19% for 55-64 year olds.”

Consoles make pandemic gains but mobile gaming remains dominant

Following declines in 2019 and 2020 after reaching a peak of 38% in 2018, access to games consoles has peaked again with 41% of respondents confirming access. Two thirds (67%) of adults surveyed play digital games on any device, including their smartphone.

The data on console ownership aligns with recent sales figures for the PlayStation 5 (PS5), which sold 25 million units by the end of September 2022, according to Sony’s official sales numbers. However, a persistent chip shortage has kept the PS5 from matching the sales pace of its predecessor, the PS4, which has gone on to sell over 100 million units and counting.

While Microsoft does not disclose official sales numbers, the tech giant has confirmed that the Xbox Series X|S are the fastest-selling Xbox consoles of all time.

However, mobile gaming still remains the dominant market with one-in-two adults who own a smartphone using it to play video games.

Mr. Kehoe continued: “There has been some significant gaming related acquisitions in the last 12 months, with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher for $68.6 billion, being the most notable. Activision Blizzard earned over half its Q2 revenue from mobile gaming and related sources. This acquisition is subject to regulatory review by the European Commission, the results of this investigation are due by the middle of March 2023.”

In game currency and purchases

‘Gaming on demand’ subscriptions continue to rise in popularity as nearly half of players now hold a gaming subscription with Playstation Plus/Now (20%) and Xbox Live (15%) the most popular.

One-in-four gamers surveyed have purchased in-game currency with younger age groups particularly interested in this: 47% of respondents in the age group 18-24 purchased in game currency. Season passes (15%) or game extensions (10%) related digital content were the top purchases, with either regular money or in-game currency used.

Daryl Hanberry, Partner and Head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications at Deloitte said: “Even though two-in-three gamers have not spent money on digital content in the last two months, we know that these in-game purchases are driving significant revenue for companies like Activision Blizzard, especially purchases made in mobile games.”

Mr. Hanberry continued: “Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and Sony’s plans for a dedicated PlayStation mobile gaming unit show that more traditional gaming companies are beginning to look towards revenue models that are increasingly driven by in-game purchases. It will be interesting to see if the habits of gamers change in response to this.”