• by Aaron Baar , January 13, 2012

Men may (want to) control the remote, but women are the key to the connected home.

According to research from Parks Associates, women are 73% more likely than men to have watched a full-length TV show online over the past 30 days.

The research firm also found that women have higher purchase intentions than men for popular consumer electronics devices (such as a fifth of women who said they planned to purchase a laptop or smartphone). Shortly after buying the product, women quickly integrated it into all aspects of their daily lives. “Once they get a product, which typically they may purchase for pragmatic and useful reasons, they will take advantage of all the applications of that product,” Parks says.

In addition, women are 40% more likely to play games on Facebook, are the majority of players on the Wii system and are nearly equal to the percentage of men who play games on the Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3, although they tend to play different kinds of games –- social-based, for instance -– than men and boys, who are more into war and fantasy games. “We are not saying that women are taking on that role [of hardcore gamer],” Parks says. “Teenage boys still have a lot of time on their hands and enjoy immersion in those worlds.”

In order to be successful in the segment, Parks says, consumer electronics companies need to spend more time targeting and giving women practical reasons to buy specific devices (such as an easier ability to maintain a social network or an ease of watching entertainment), and let the usage patterns follow.

“Women actually buy more electronics than men,” Parks says. “That, in a way, is not surprising -- since women continue to have the role of shopping in the household, which could include electronics. [But] the view that men will be dominant just no longer holds.”