IDC: Gen Z and Younger Driving Major Shift in Consumers

A recent IDC survey shows stark differences between Gen Z/Younger Millennials and older consumers when it comes to using technology for earning and spending money.

According to the report, a staggering 48% of all households had at least one source of tech-enabled income generation in 2022. Top sectors included content creation, peer-to-peer commerce, and rideshare driving. This trend is driven by Gen Z- and Millennial-led households, where 60% of Consumer Pulse respondents said they derived such income in the last year.

“It’s important to remember that this includes selling things on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, picking up the occasional shift on Lyft or Uber, and posting content on sites such as YouTube,” said David Myhrer, research vice president, Consumer Strategies at IDC. “There is now a diverse set of opportunities for consumers to generate new sources of income, and they’re embracing them.”

Combined worldwide spending on independently created content, items purchased via peer-to-peer commerce, and ridesharing services will grow to a total of $294 billion by 2026, according to IDC’s Consumer Market Model (CMM), which forecasts strong and continued growth of spending on consumer-derived content, goods, and services. For example, the CMM forecasts that by 2026 consumers will add $15 billion worldwide in new spending in support of their fellow consumers’ independent content creation. Peer-to-peer marketplaces will also see strong growth, accelerating from $33 billion to $117 billion from 2021 to 2026. Finally, rideshare driving will drive $85 billion in new spending worldwide between now and 2026.

“Gen Z and younger Millennials will dominate future spending in a wide range of CMM categories,” said Kelly Brown, senior research analyst for IDC’s Consumer Market Model. “These groups are not following the same playbook as their predecessors, and they are actively seeking new alternatives to both earning and spending income.”

How consumers spend that extra income is rapidly changing, too. The Consumer Pulse shows that online transactions (50%) overtook in-person purchases (43%) in 2022, inverting the pre-COVID mix.

Channel Impact^®
Younger consumers are likely to transform the tech landscape over the next decade.