The browsers on mobile devices are popular again with new consumers. Half of American adults have a smartphone or a tablet and most of them use these devices to access information, according to a study released.
The report, “Project for Excellence in Journalism, (PEJ)” from the Pew Research Center in collaboration with newsgroup The Economist shows that, despite the increase in the number of news mobile applications, people have not stopped to view news from the browser. More than 60 percent of Americans use tablets and smartphones to surf news sites through the device’s browser.
The U.S. research institute Pew Research examined under 10,000 respondents how their news consumption has developed over the last year. The first conclusion is that people actually read longer stories on tablets (69%), and phones (60%) came in second place. A year ago, 40% of respondents read the news online via a web.
“Even with the broadening population and wide range of competing activities, mobile owners are drawn to news on their tablet and smartphones,” PEJ deputy director Amy Mitchell said in a statement. “The evidence is also mounting that mobile devices are adding to, rather than replacing, how much news people consume.”
Pew Research also looked at where and what time news usually is consumed. The mobile nature of the media means that people everywhere can read and watch news. What is surprising, however, is that this does not happen. Most news consumers take in the daily news at home than at work, commuting or somewhere else.
What is striking news is how fast the possession of a tablet has grown. Twenty-two percent of all adults in America currently have access to a tablet. Furthermore, an additional 3% of the 9500 respondents who said they do not own a tablet but have access to one through a roommate/partner/children) regularly viewed the news on it.
“There are a variety of activities one can do on a mobile device today,” Paul Rossi, managing director and executive vice president of The Economist Group, said in a statement. “However, even with all those options, reading is still one of the most popular activities. With more people than ever before using these devices, this clearly represents an incredible opportunity for publishers across the country.”
Smartphone and tablets are already huge and they are still growing rapidly, said PEJ director Tom Rosenstiel. Half the population has mobile access compared to the 75% who have a desktop/laptop computer. So, this is where the business is going. These are the computers people will be using at home. Nothing is working magically different or better on the tablet, but content providers can take encouragement from the time users spend reading on a tablet and the intimate, home-setting engagement with the platform.
“The survey finds that consumers have yet to embrace certain features that mobile devices offer. While mobile technology allows people to get news anywhere, and any time, most people get news on these devices when they are at home — and roughly half of mobile news users get news on their device just once a day. Similarly, the use of news apps on mobile devices, which many publishers hoped would be a way to charge for content, remains limited. Most people still use a browser for news on their tablet,” the report said.
Characteristically, about 20% of the respondents own a paid subscription to news feeds, and this is a fairly significant amount. Interestingly, the use of mobile devices to read the news does not mean that the owners stopped using the more traditional sources (a PC or even newspapers). About one-third of respondents subscribe to the print periodicals, and most of them are not going to abandon it.
Research shows that about half of the respondents use the Apple iPad, compared to 81% last year. Nearly 48% of respondents currently use devices based on the Android platform, and this dynamic shows that Android is about to outpace iOS in the coming days.