Survey: One in three Finns struggle with smartphone storage, a fifth don’t know what notifications are

Our recent survey reveals that many Finns are not familiar with a key smartphone functionality: notifications. And another third are struggling with limited storage space.

According to our nationwide survey, as many as one in five Finns (19.9 percent) don’t know what push notifications are. We charted the Finns’ attitude to mobile apps with a survey in late October, with a sample representative of Finland’s adult population.

Ignorance about notifications was greatest in the 55–64 and over 65 age brackets. Conversely, only ten percent of people aged 25–34 or under 25 didn’t know what app notifications are.

Space is still at a premium on many phones

The survey also showed that, even though the capacity of smartphones grows by the year, a significant percentage of Finns still struggle with insufficient storage space. More than a third (34.4%) of respondents said that they had not downloaded an app because there was not enough space on their phones.

Students and the self-employed had skipped downloads due to lack of space more often than others (44.5% and 43.4%, respectively).

On the other hand, having a high income probably means that storage space isn’t a consideration. Only just over a fifth (26%) of those with an annual income of 100,000 euros or more had not downloaded applications because of space considerations.

“In recent years, I’ve often heard people discussing whether storage space is a major consideration in app downloads any more. This survey shows that it’s still surprisingly important. App developers would do well to keep this in mind, but communicating a technical aspect like this to users could be difficult”, says our Head of Design, Matias Pietilä.

Our electronic survey was taken by 1,000 people aged 18–75, with an equal gender distribution. The margin of error of the survey conducted by research company Bilendi is 3.1 percent.

Read more from our article Survey: This is why people aren’t downloading your app

Illustration: Aija Malmioja