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What is the demographics of consumers using augmented reality?
Hi there! Thanks for asking about the demographics of consumers using augmented reality (AR). The most useful sources I found to answer your question are Statista's breakdown of the demographics of Snapchat users, and Forbes' reporting on the demographics of Pokemon Go users. The short answer is that analyses of the demographics of the two most popular consumer AR applications reveals that AR consumers tend to be females aged 13-34, in both the U.S. and the UK. A deep dive of my methodology and findings is presented below.
METHODOLOGY
Since you asked about the demographics of consumers using AR, I focused solely on existing consumer-oriented AR applications, and ignored the various professional uses of AR (i.e. military, art, medicine, pilot navigation, etc.). My research revealed that the only substantial consumer use of AR at this time has been through two applications: Snapchat, primarily, and Pokemon Go to a lesser extent. Given these findings, I focused on determining the demographics of Snapchat and Pokemon Go users.
SNAPCHAT AR
Snapchat's Lenses, launched in 2015, are one of the platform's most popular features: 158 million daily active users spend about 20 seconds per day playing with Lenses, and about 52 million people use Lenses every day.
While classification of Snapchat's initial design of the Lens feature was debated as to whether it truly counted as AR, the company's use of facial recognition technology to "augment pictures with digital features" was increasingly seen as the best current example of AR in consumers' hands. For example, an estimated 16 million people view or use Sponsored Lenses daily, while 40-60% of Snapchat's daily users will see Sponsored Geofilters.
The recent launch of 3D Lenses, however, firmly plants the Snapchat Lens feature within the realm of AR.
SNAPCHAT DEMOGRAPHICS
While Snapchat is popular around the world, U.S. and UK users have some of the highest time-spent-in-app rates.
Adding some of these groups together, we can see that a full 86% of Snapchat users are aged 13-34, with 60% of users falling within the ages of 13 and 24. However, 50% of new users of Snapchat are aged 25+, so the predominance of the 13-24 age group might shift over time.
In the UK, 70% of Snapchat's 16 million users are over the age of 18, with adult usage age groups breaking down as follows:
We can thus calculate that 66.4% of UK users are under the age of 35 (compared to 86% in the US).
0.70*(0.20+0.17+0.11) = 0.336
1-0.336 = 0.664
In terms of gender, female users are in the majority in both the U.S. and the UK, with females accounting for about 58% of users in the U.S. and about 55% of users in the UK.
A survey of Snapchat users in the U.S. revealed that 48% consider creating their own stories to be the feature they like most, while 37% like video chatting the most, 35% like the auto-delete feature most, 34% like drawing/stickers/filters for snaps. This suggests that about 34% of Snapchat users in the U.S. are using the app primarily for its AR features.
POKEMON GO AR
The debate over whether Pokemon Go qualifies as AR is more hotly contested than the debate over Snapchat. While some argue that the lack of realism in the game classify it as simply location-based entertainment, others acquiesce that the gameplay of throwing balls at images of Pokemon overlaid on the real world does allow at least part of the game to qualify as AR. As such, I'm including some information about Pokemon Go's demographics, which you can consider or discard depending on which side of the debate you fall on.
POKEMON GO DEMOGRAPHICS
Initially, the core demographic of Pokemon Go users in the U.S. was a male aged 21-27. However, the proportion of females playing the game rose over time. A survey conducted by SurveyMonkey Intelligence determined that approximately 63% of U.S. users of Pokemon Go were female. The age breakdown of U.S. users was found to be as follows:
Thus 68% of Pokemon Go players were under the age of 30 in the U.S., and almost 90% of users were playing in city or urban areas. This survey found that the average user persona of a U.S. Pokemon Go player in 2016 was a 25-year-old white woman with a college degree, who had an annual income of about $90,000 per year.
A YouGov survey conducted in the UK found that the average Pokemon Go player was a Millennial aged 18-34. Interestingly, this survey also found that the average UK player tended to be lazier than average, "veer towards vanity", and considers music "central to their lives".
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, Snapchat and Pokemon Go were identified as the most popular consumer applications of AR. An analysis of the demographics of both applications' user bases reveals that the core demographic of AR consumers in the U.S. and the UK is female, and between the ages of 13 and 34.
I hope this helps! Thanks for asking Wonder. Please let us know if we can help with anything else!