Early Adopters? Occidental Communications

Are Australians Really Early Adopters?
Article published (slightly edited) in the journal Marketing as The High-tech Fallacy November 1998

Australians are often claimed to be early and enthusiastic adopters of new technology, with the uptake of VCRs and mobile phones most often cited as evidence. Less often, PCs and the Internet also get a mention.

When hard statistics are examined, they illustrate a certain truth to this notion. To begin with, Australians are definitely early adopters of computers. As of the end of 1997, according to IDC Research, the penetration rate in Australia of 365 PCs per 1,000 population is the second highest in the world, behind the USA (477) and just ahead of Norway (361). Australians are a little bit further behind getting aboard the Internet, though. Using figures from IDC Research, ComQuest and RelevantKnowledge, Australia's uptake of 114 users per 1,000 population places us 8th in the world, behind the USA, Canada, the four Scandinavian countries and Switzerland (just). A total of 30% of Australians use mobile phones according to the 7th Mobile Communications Report, the 4th highest penetration in the world.

Another area where Australians are early adopters is solar water heating. Although installed in only about 4% of Australian homes, this ranks us second or third in the world, according to Solahart's marketing manager, and in some other countries, solar water heating is mandatory.

At least one VCR could be found in about 90% of Australian homes, according to a marketing person at one of the major suppliers, who described the market as "close to saturation". But although he could not provide comparative figures, it is likely that markets in other developed countries are equally saturated. Perhaps the Australian market was saturated first.

But are Australians really early adopters in general, or are these just aberrations?

Despite these examples, the list of technologies and products where Australians are remarkably tardy to adopt new technologies is longer. Cable TV, mixer faucettes, double-glazed windows, reclosable cereal boxes and fridges are just some of the examples.

It isn't all, though, the fault of a tardy buying public. Australians don't use cable TV (not to be confused with pay TV), because government regulation hasn't, to date, permitted it and it probably never will. And Australians can't be blamed for not having, until very recently, had reclosable cereal boxes. For reasons known only to themselves, the very same companies which have used such boxes in North America from at least the 1960s didn't introduce them into this country until the 1990s.

One could blame window manufacturers for not offering double-glazed windows for non-commercial buildings and home builders for not putting thresholds under doors to keep the cold out, but that is assuming there is a demand for them. And herein lies the problem - Australians are, paradoxically, as reluctant to adopt some new and not so new technologies as they are keen to adopt others.

Another clear example of this is the mixer faucette which, when it was invented, immediately became the standard in North America. However, Australians, by contrast, have long regarded the mixer faucette as some sort of luxury item, an attitude with is only now, and only gradually, changing, and only in the major cities. In areas where phone numbers used to be six digits, having a mixer faucette in a caravan park or roadhouse still risks expulsion from the relevant industry organisation.

Similarly, although almost everyone uses their fridge far more than their freezer, Australians still overwhelmingly prefer the fridge at the less conveniently located bottom. A spokesperson for Harvey Norman said that refrigerators with the fridge compartment on the top comprised no more than 15% of sales, but blamed this, in part, on a lack of available models of this design.

And this provides an important clue to the lack of new technology adoption. In many cases, Australian manufacturers (and retailers) shy away from product differentiation, perhaps due to the small-minded "the Australian market is too small" syndrome and perhaps due to a perception that all of one's competitors have exhaustively researched the market because, well, they must have. As a result, such suppliers assume that it's safer to just copy product and only compete on the other Ps.

One of these Ps is, of course, promotion. Promoting new technology is fine, provided it is genuinely new. Between 1975 and 1979, according to industry statistics provided to the author by Ford, 92.5% of automobiles manufactured in the USA were equipped with automatic transmission and many models were not even available with manual transmission. But at the same time, Australia's GMH considered this feature to be so wonderful, so revolutionary, so innovative, the company had the words "Tri-matic" crafted in chrome on every Kingswood it built with automatic transmission!

There is nothing wrong, of course, with promoting technology that is genuinely new, but Australia would certainly benefit from firms that both promoted new technology, both high-tech and low-tech, and that tried to wean Australians off the obsolete.

Home Non-Technical Papers Contact