Social Media Access is Key for Mobile VPN Users

To continue this week’s series on VPNs, today we explore the reasons why people are deploying these tools, and how this varies by device.

VPNs allow consumers access to content libraries not currently available in their country.

Gaining access to this kind of content is currently the top reason for deploying these tools.

This is a strong motivation across regions, especially in APAC.

Elsewhere, there are some key differences in why VPN Users are turning to VPNs on their mobiles or computers.

Access to social networks and communicating with friends abroad are more important reasons for the mobile VPN Users.

This is in line with most consumers now accessing social networks and using messaging services on their mobiles, as well as the desire to use platforms that are not available in their market.

Mobile VPN Users in China, for example, are especially likely to be using VPNs to access social networks (41%), which is down to many social platforms being blocked here.

For the PC VPN Users, we see a slight skew towards using VPNs for privacy reasons and also for work purposes.

This could be down to consumers being more conscious of tracking on their mobiles, and also because the majority of people continue to choose computers over mobiles to work on.

In tomorrow’s chart, we will explore further the numbers using VPNs for privacy and entertainment reasons, and how this varies across the world regions.