Deloitte predicts technology trends for 2016

• Mobile touch commerce usage to increase by 150 percent globally, to 50 million in 2016
• 18 to 24 year-olds will be the biggest PC users this year

The technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) practice at Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has today announced its predictions for the technology sector in 2016. The news comes following the launch of Deloitte’s TMT Predictions 2016, now in its sixteenth year.

Touch commerce accelerates the mobile check out
According to Deloitte, 2016 will mark the rise of mobile touch commerce, which will be used by 50 million consumers by the end of the year, an increase of 150 percent from last year. Consumers love browsing retail sites and apps on their phones; payment however is typically far more clunky, and abandoned baskets are commonplace. Touch commerce allows customers to make a secure payment on a mobile device, authorised simply through a fingerprint or a few touches of the screen, without having to provide registration.

David Halstead, lead technology partner at Deloitte, comments: “Consumers love being constantly connected to their smartphones, from the early hours in the morning to late at night. With the introduction of a simplified payment process, there is a clear opportunity for converting browsing into purchases with a simplified payment process, wherever they are.

“Crucially, touch commerce reduces significantly the time taken from browsing to transaction on a mobile phone, to seconds rather than minutes.”

Trailing millennials are the pro-PC, not the post-PC, generation
This year’s report also predicts that trailing millennials (18-24 year olds) are likely to be the biggest PC users in 2016, and are very unlikely to abandon personal computers altogether. Although regarded as the smartphone generation, this age group sees smartphones and PCs as complements, not substitutes. Its ownership, intent to purchase and use of PCs will likely be higher than any other age group in 2016.

Halstead adds: “Having a mobile-first strategy will be necessary in 2016, especially if your market includes millennials.

“However, a mobile-only strategy will simply not work, as this assumes that millennials have already abandoned, or are about to abandon their computers. Our research shows that millennials still use their PCs, and sometimes even prefer the PC to mobile.”

Other technology predictions include:

Women in IT jobs: it is about education, but it is also about more than just education
Deloitte also predicts that, by the end of 2016, fewer than 25 per cent of information technology (IT) jobs in developed countries will be held by women. The lack of gender diversity in IT is both a social and economic issue. Global costs may be in the tens of billions of dollars; according to one study, the gender gap in IT costs the UK alone about $4 billion annually*.

End

Note to editors

*HR Magazine - 2.6 billion GBP is roughly $4 billion.
For a full copy of the report (launched on Wednesday, 13th January 2016) with all of the Deloitte predictions please visit www.deloitte.co.uk/tmtpredictions.

The 2016 series of TMT Predictions is the 15th edition of the report and has drawn on internal and external inputs from conversations with member firm clients, contributions from Deloitte member firms’ 7,000 partners and managers specialising in TMT, and discussions with industry analysts as well as interviews with leading executives from around the world and proprietary quantitative research.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.