The Technology Gender Gap

AT Home Tech reader and tech enthusiast, techgirllaura and I have been exchanging facts, opinions and personal observations about the consumer electronics industry and women's purchasing habits. She's correctly stated that women are in fact the primary purchasers of consumer electronics today, outspending men US$55 billion to US$41 billion, as supported by figures from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). This discussion sprung from a post about how important colour is to home theater screen purchasing decisions, but quickly morphed into an interesting discussion about gender and the consumer electronics landscape...

Women are dominating and shaping the mobile industry, are becoming a sizable demographic in many categories of video gaming/online gaming, and are increasingly influencing the spectrum of industrial design in the realm of consumer electronics. But what women tend to purchase, which particular technologies are coveted, and how they use these consumer devices can be much different from their male counterparts.

It still seems evident that men and women purchase product with different standards and emphasis, and that certain features are generally more important to one gender opposed to the other. A recent study done by Hitachi and KRC found that 32% of women would want a 50-inch or 60-inch screen compared to 43% of men, and that seven in ten women are not comfortable explaining HDTV technology compared to only about half of men. A Panasonic survey stated that 70% were interested in purchasing an HDTV screens of 50-inch and above or medium (37-50 inches) screen sizes, while 76 percent of women lean more towards a smaller size screen. What this seems to illustrate is that although the HDTV technology is being adopted on a near equal scale by gender, the motivating factors of purchase and interest remain markedly different. Women seem to be attracted by screen size and the more aesthetic form factor of flat panel HDTVs, while men seem more informed and aware of the underlying technology and...surprise, surprise...focused upon screen size.

What I'm also curious to see is statistics that break down purchases of larger, more expensive consumer electronics by gender, marital status and age. Personal observation reveals that most large flat panel HDTV sets and home theater sound systems purchased by women are those who are married or are in a relationships; I have yet to walk into a single woman's home where there is a large screen purchased by and for herself, but that might not be the case in just a few years. I've also noted that many of my female friends are purchasing Nintendo Wii's, cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, iPhones and other personal consumer devices all for themselves in droves, and in numbers greater than many of my male friends. Statistics and polls rarely tell the whole story, but maybe we're in a cultural transition where technology has democratized specific categories once off limits to women and also created whole new ones that will be defined and dominated by women. Soon enough, it might be the wives dragging their husbands to Fry's Electronics. What a wonderful world that will be.
Gregory

Comments (8)

what do you count as "large screen"? I've got a 40-inch LCD HDTV in my living room, two computers (desktop and laptop), and am coveting a new Bose soundsystem, but can't justify it until my current stereo system dies for some reason or another. I've also set up my lighting to work by remote control, and have successfully integrated TV/stereo/computer/DVD so that they all work together and on the same remote.

Then again, I'm the tech anomaly amongst my girlfriends.

And the only reason I didn't go even bigger on the TV was that it would have completely overwhelmed my NYC apartment living room.

I'm single, living alone, female and purchased a 42" for myself last year. Just to inform your stats.

Wow, I didn't realize I was so tech savy but I'm one of the three out of ten woman that actually enjoys talking about HDTV. In fact I've had to educate my (male) friends who had not set up their TVs correctly and thought they were viewing in HD when they were not! HDMI cable is a glorious thing.

However, one of the first questions I ask my brother (my computer tech consultant) when buying something new is if it is "shiny". Sigh, I love sparkles!

I think part of the different buying styles is that women are less likely to be obsessive over an entertainment purchase. I want a Wii but I'm not going to camp out overnight or call all over town for one. However if it happens to be at the store I'm in then I'll be sure to grab it!

I think that "obsessive nature" is an interesting point. My girlfriend is often amused by the sheer amount of research I do before purchasing anything electronic; it's almost like I'm cross referencing data for the cure for cancer or double checking security at the Pentagon, when all I'm doing is buying a cable. But like you mention, HDMI cables are a glorious thing :)

Oooh, I took a day off from AT only to find Gregory and my discussion has yielded a post of its own. It's a debate that has long been going on within the CE industry. Suffice to say, the research is in and Women are the biggest customers, across most, but not all categories.

Sorry, but the data isn't available to the public but TVs are in there. The average size TV in the U.S. is 42 inches. I certainly consider that to be a larger size. Gregory, you are correct to assume that women and men have different reasons for wanting home technology. They also shop for it differently (and retailers are working hard to address this point as well).

But focus on size, particularly inches, is strictly a male thing. Not surprising. If you ask women if they are interested in a purchasing a screen of XX number of inches, the answer is very different than if you ask them if they would buy a TV that fits an available area of their home if it was also within their budget. You might be surprised to hear the answer come in more with a larger screen size.

See, the research shows conclusively that women are buying home entertainment (not just portable lifestyle products) in droves but get items that suit their needs rather than scratch an itch.

Men are more enamored of the features, sometimes just for the sake of having cool new features, whether they ever use them or not.
But I could go on all day.

For example....
Women buy more cell phones than men not because they love to talk on the phone but because they are also responsible for buying them for their kids and other family members including aging parents.
and
With more than 95% of U.S. households owning a TV, it stands to reason that unmarried women have purchased such an item and not just for our Hope Chests.

Data and polls and market research don't always tell the whole story. But in this case they tell a more accurate one then anecedotes and strictly personal observations.
And often, it's more a matter of looking at the world in a more non-traditional way.

And Gregory, that link to the CEA website doesn't go to the survey you cite. I suspect it's from several years ago. Fall 2004 to be precise. CEA hasn't updated the data since.
Here's the original release
www.ebrain.com/PDF/DSNRT_Jan05.pdf

And this was before the new digital and flat panel TV cycle really hit.

XO

If you ask women if they are interested in a purchasing a screen of XX number of inches, the answer is very different than if you ask them if they would buy a TV that fits an available area of their home if it was also within their budget.

Interesting point! That rings true in so many ways...

...not least of which is that I'm the person in my household who has been pricing flat-screen TVs. Why? 'Cause I'm wondering if one will fit better in the new apartment.

Paco Underhill's Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping provides some interesting research on how men and women typically shop differently for the same items, though he doesn't cover technology specifically. However, his analysis pretty clearly points to Best Buy and Circuit City as being very male-oriented, while the Apple stores are more aimed at appealing to women shoppers.

(And I say "Let's go to Fry's!" even though the husband is the in-house technogeek. Fry's is fun.)

Thanks for the confirmation (affirmation?) Wende. I think Fry's is fun too. Best Buy and Circuit City have lab stores and locations that cater to female customers differently than their stores used to. Everyone is trying to do a better job of defying Underhill's analysis. They don't always succeed but sometimes as a customer, you notice that they at least are trying and that alone can make a difference.

Really problematic data here -- while gender (which is really sex) is taken into account, there are a lot of factors that aren't. Marital status, living situation (single person living in a space vs. more than one), income, what these people are intending to watch, age, etc. Yeah, a single chick living in Manhattan in a 300 sq ft studio will probably have a different set-up than a middle-aged couple living in a 1200 sq ft ranch in the burbs ... and no, it's not because the Manhattanite is a woman.

Would I like a 60 inch HDTV? Oh heck yes. Bring on the Barefoot Contessa in larger-than-life glory. Except it wouldn't fit in my apartment without taking up every inch of wall space in my tiny living room. So I have a pretty awesome but TINY flat screen Samsung (nearly identical to the one in the picture above), which is quite nice.