Almost half of Flemish people who download films and series do so illegally

Almost half of the Flemish who download films and series via the internet, do so mainly illegally. This is apparent from the annual Digimeter of iMinds, a study into the use of digital media and devices in Flanders.

The number of downloaders who mainly use illegal ways to download films and series is also increasing among the respondents of the iMinds Digimeter 2014, from about 45 percent to 48 percent. For music, that percentage is much lower: about 34 percent downloads music mainly illegally.

The figures also show that for the first time the number of smartphones among the respondents is higher than the number of ‘traditional mobile phones’. About 57 percent of Flemish respondents now have a smartphone. Android has the most market share with 53 percent, followed by iOS with 31 percent and Windows Phone with almost 11 percent. BlackBerry has fallen below 1 percent among respondents. The Flemish buy relatively few new telephones: 64 percent of the devices are older than a year.

Based on this research, almost as many Flemish people seem to have a tablet: 55.8 percent of the respondents said they have a tablet, although the actual use is lower. A small proportion of people have bought a tablet for their children and do not use it themselves. The iPad is the market leader in tablets: almost half of the tablets in use are iPads. About 38 percent are Android tablets, while 8.5 percent run Windows. About two-thirds of the tablets are older than a year.

Digimeter is the result of an extensive questionnaire that research agency iMinds presented to 2000 Flemish people this year. The study group was weighted by age, gender and region. Some of the respondents completed the questionnaire with pen and paper, some online.