Mobile Access to News and Information Doubles in Popularity
According to figures released earlier this week by comScore, nearly 22.4 million U.S. mobile phone users accessed news and information (excluding social networking) on a daily basis in January, reflecting a huge boost from last year.
In January 2008, more than 10.8 million users accessed news and information on a daily basis by way of their mobile devices. This means that the number of Americans accessing this information from their mobile devices more than doubled during the past year.
Nearly 19.3 million users accessed news and information through their mobile devices on a weekly basis, reflecting an 87 percent increase from last January’s 10.3 million users.
Another 63.2 million users accessed news and information on their mobile devices “ever in the month,” reflecting a 71 percent increase from 36.9 million last January.
“This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information,” said Mark Donovan, senior vice president of mobile at comScore, in a press release.
With regards to the types of content these users are accessing, social networking sites or blogs saw the biggest year-over-year increase, as the number of this category’s daily unique users skyrocketed 427 percent to 9.3 million in January, up from 1.8 million in the same month last year.
Nearly 3.3 million users traded stocks or accessed financial accounts on a daily basis in January, up 188 percent from 1.1 million who did in January 2008.
Almost 3.1 million users accessed movie information on a daily basis, up 185 percent from 1.1 million in the same month last year.
Meanwhile, 2.4 million users accessed business directories on a daily basis in January, reflecting a 161 percent increase from 939,000 in January of last year. Nearly 5.5 million users accessed entertainment news on a daily basis in January, up 160 percent from 2.1 million in the same month in 2008.
Donovan noted that “much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications, such as those offered for the iPhone, and by text-based searches. While smartphones and high-end feature phones, like the Samsung Instinct and LG Dare comprise the Top 10 devices used for news and information access, 70 percent of those accessing mobile Internet content are using feature phones.”
The report noted that 22.3 million people in the U.S. accessed news and information by way of a downloaded application in January. Of these applications, maps were the most popular with 8.2 million users.
The most active consumers of mobile news and information are young males between the ages of 18 and 34, and young females between 18 and 24.
Sources:</strong
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2752
