2013 RJI Mobile Media Research Report 3

This report examines the use of media tablets and smartphones for news.

Respondents who had used a tablet and/or a smartphone during the week prior to taking the surveys increased by only three percentage points overall between Q1 2012 and Q1 2013. But within this grouping, the percentage of news consumers who used both mobile devices more than doubled, increasing from 21 percent in 2012 to 46 percent In 2013. As a percentage of respondents who used a smartphone with a tablet, 82 percent were news consumers in 2013.

Among respondents who had a smartphone and/or a tablet, the overall percentage of those who used a smartphone together with a tablet did not increase significantly between 2012 and 2013.

In both years, smartphone users who also had a tablet were much more likely to have used one with a 9-inch or larger display than a mini tablet. Conversely, large tablet users were more likely than mini tablet users to have used a smartphone in both years. However, in 2013 mini tablet users were much less likely to have used a smartphone.

The percentage of smartphone and/or media tablet users who said they used one or both mobile devices to read, view or listen to digital content within news websites or news apps during the previous week jumped from 62 percent in 2012 to 70 percent in 2013.

Most of the growth can be attributed to tablets. More than half (55 percent) of smart-phone and/or tablet news consumers in 2013 used a media tablet with or without a smartphone. In 2012, three-quarters of the news consumers in this grouping used only a smartphone.

Women are moving closer to parity with men in the use of mobile media, especially in the use of tablets.

Women and men in 2013 were equally inclined to use tablets with smartphones. In 2012, only 35 percent of smartphone and/or tablet users who had used both mobile devices were women.

In 2013, as in 2012, women were much more likely to have used only a tablet; whereas men were much more likely to have used only a smartphone.

In 2013, women also were nearly equal to men in their use of tablets with smartphones for news. A year earlier, less than a quarter (24 percent) of the smartphone + tablet news consumers were women.