CONTACT Magazine (Vol.18 No.2 – September 2018)

JAN
2018
SOCIAL MEDIA USE
BASED ON THE MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS REPORTED BY THE MOST ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM IN EACH COUNTRY
TOTAL NUMBER
OF ACTIVE SOCIAL
MEDIA USERS
ACTIVE SOCIAL USERS
AS A PERCENTAGE OF
THE TOTAL POPULATION
TOTAL NUMBER
OF SOCIAL USERS
ACCESSING VIA MOBILE
ACTIVE MOBILE SOCIAL
USERS AS A PERCENTAGE
OF THE TOTAL POPULATION
800.0 58% 700.0 51%
THOUSAND
THOUSAND
NOTE: PENETRATION FIGURES ARE FOR TOTAL POPULATION, REGARDLESS OF AGE.
Social media usage in Trinidad and Tobago, January 2018 (wearesocial)
JAN
2018
SHARE OF WEB TRAFFIC BY DEVICE
BASED ON EACH DEVICE’S SHARE OF ALL WEB PAGES SERVED TO WEB BROWSERS
LAPTOPS &
DESKTOPS
YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE:
MOBILE
PHONES
TABLET
DEVICES
OTHER
DEVICES
49% 41% 9% 0.61%
YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE: YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE: YEAR-ON-YEAR CHANGE:
-19% +38% +1% +42%
Share of web traffic by device in Trinidad and Tobago (wearesocial)
JAN
2018
FINANCIAL INCLUSION FACTORS
PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION AGED 15+ THAT REPORTS OWNING OR USING EACH FINANCIAL PRODUCT OR SERVICE
HAS A BANK
ACCOUNT
HAS A
CREDIT CARD
MAKES AND / OR RECEIVES
MOBILE PAYMENTS VIA GSMA
MAKES ONLINE PURCHASES
AND / OR PAYS BILLS ONLINE
76% 15% [N/A] [N/A]
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN
WITH A CREDIT CARD
PERCENTAGE OF MEN
WITH A CREDIT CARD
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN
MAKING INTERNET PAYMENTS
PERCENTAGE OF MEN
MAKING INTERNET PAYMENTS
13% 18% [N/A] [N/A]
Financial inclusion factors in Trinidad and Tobago (wearesocial)
While social media usage is high, the real
story is the number of users accessing
social media on mobile devices (700,000
of the total number of 800,000, and 51
per cent of the population).
Also interesting is the spread of
internet users across devices – 41 per
cent on mobile (up 38 per cent yearon-year)
compared with 49 per cent
(down year-on-year) on laptops and
desktops.
But while the access situation is
fairly healthy, digital commerce is less
so. Digital commerce on the internet
– mobile or otherwise – is driven by
the level of digital financial inclusion,
and there are fundamental gaps there.
While 76 per cent of the population
have a bank account, and presumably
a debit card, only 15 per cent have a
credit card.
Coupled with an underdeveloped
electronic payments environment,
this has led to the development of
creative solutions to facilitate electronic
transactions; as a result, received foreign
exchange is being “trapped” in expensive
credit card facilities or in overseas bank
accounts. A significant percentage of
these receipts cannot be repatriated
to Trinidad and Tobago. Instead of
the positive disruption that a robust
electronic/mobile payments process
would normally produce, we are seeing
negative distortions.
Simon Fraser, Lecturer in
Management Information Systems at The
University of the West Indies, suggests
that “the success of traditional measures
might be acting as inhibitors to uptake
on newer systems.”
www.chamber.org.tt/contact-magazine 31
Trinidad and Tobago Chamber
of Industry and Commerce