Published: 29/7 2013
Now the Swedes relax by unplugging. The Telia Surfindex increases by 10.5 percent compared to the week before, and the mobile networks are responsible for the entire increase. Swedes currently use smartphones, tablets and laptops extensively.
The Telia Surfindex also shows that Swedes are now mentally preparing for vacation. Surfing on everyday-related sites such as news and housing is decreasing and not even Almedal Week or the unrest in Egypt can save the news sites, which drop by over 10 percent. The Swedes are now taking a timeout from work-related sites for a few weeks and only the travel category continues to increase.
Connected mode has become the norm even on holiday. Swedes' summer surfing continues to increase - not least in the mobile network. Now we take our portable gadgets with us to summer cottages, guest harbors and swimming beaches. Telia's total data traffic for May and June increased by almost 40 percent compared to the corresponding period in 2012. This is due, among other things, to us devoting ourselves increasingly to bandwidth-intensive activities. Film and TV viewing via Telia's on-demand services increased in May and June by around 50 percent compared to the same months last year.
The European Football Championship is expected to affect our surfing habits
The method for studying Swedes' online summer habits is based on millions of unique visits to a number of relevant websites in various categories. Now the shift is taking place from work to vacation mode and categories such as news and housing mark how we take mental vacations. The Almedalen brings increased activity on social media such as Twitter, but neither the politicians' week in Visby nor the unrest in Egypt affected surfing on news sites, which fell by 10.5 percent compared to the week before. In the housing category, surfing decreased by 13.6 percent and the nice weather probably affected movie and TV viewing, which fell by 13.3 percent.
The sports category decreased by just 2 percent compared to the previous week. The attention around the start of EC football is probably an explanation for the category's only marginal decline. During last summer's soccer European Championship and Olympic Games, Telia Surfindex showed that we surfed more on sports-related sites. The football European Championship is now underway at home and this indicates that the sports category will increase during July.
- Interest seems to be at its peak after the opening matches. I believe that many will follow and comment on the Swedish soccer girls' continued progress via the television, the computer, the tablet and the smartphone, says Ulrika Matsgård, head of consumer marketing at Telia.
Swedes dream of travel online during the summer
Something that stands out in week 27 is the travel category, which is the only category that increases compared to the week before. The travel category increases by 6.9 percent and in relation to the index, there has been a steady rise so far during the summer. Although all curves except travel now point downward, statistics from last summer show that changes in weather can also cause rapid reversals in web surfing.
- The fact that interest in travel rises during the holiday may be because we want to be prepared when the low pressure starts to pile up. Maybe we don't really trust Swedish summer weather or maybe we surf to get inspiration for upcoming trips, thinks Ulrika Matsgård.
