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77pc of tablet owners use device daily: study

Seventy-seven percent of tablet owners use their devices everyday and 53 percent of users depend on tablets for daily news, according to a study by Pew Research and The Economist Group.

However, the study also found that only 14 percent consumers who used their mobile devices to read news paid for content. The study looks at the reading habits of tablet users and how consumers digest news content on mobile compared to other channels.

?We?re seeing early adopters of tablets are using them a lot with a significant amount of time each day and news is a large component of what they are doing on the device,? said Amy Mitchell, deputy director at Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism, Washington.

?Tablet habits are quickly evolving and expanding,? she said.

Keeping tabs
According to the ?The tablet revolution: How people use tablets, and what it means for the future of news,? study, 11 percent of adults in the United States own tablets.

Consumers spend approximately 90 minutes per day engaging with their devices.

Fifty-four percent of users surveyed said they use their tablets for email.

Additionally, 39 percent of tablet owners access social media through them.

Thirty percent of consumers surveyed said they used their tablets for gaming, and 17 percent read books on the devices.

Only 13 percent of tablet owners surveyed said they watch movies and videos on their tablets.

Two-thirds of tablets users have news apps downloaded, but only 21 percent of tablet users use apps to get their news.

Citing a shift from desktop browsing, 40 percent of tablet owners say they get news primarily through a browser.

Thirty-one percent of users interact with news apps and the browser equally.

Despite the low percentage of consumers who pay for tablet-specific content, 23 percent of consumers surveyed said they accessed a digital version of a subscription on their tablets, showing that there is an overlap between print and mobile content.

Consumers are gobbling up free tablet content

Of consumers surveyed who have news apps downloaded, 83 percent said that an app being free or low cost was the main reason behind their download.

However, brand is also important for tablet owners. Eighty-four percent of consumers surveyed with news apps downloaded had said that liking the news organization was the main reasoning behind choosing an app.

Making the switch
In the study, 90 percent of tablet owners are consuming news on their tablet that they used to view on other channels, including print, Web and broadcast channels.

The tablet has also transformed readers? experiences by using more long-form articles.

Thirty percent of consumers surveyed said they spend more time reading news since owning a tablet.

Additionally, 42 percent of tablet owners surveyed said they read in-depth articles regularly on their devices.

Tablet owners are additionally more likely to want multimedia content - 71 percent of tablet owners said they preferred listening and reading content compared to 45 percent of all U.S. adults.

Tablets are increasingly becoming the go-to place for consumers to read news, according to a recent study by Juniper Research (see story).

However, the challenge is still how publishers can monetize mobile, which includes working it into a multichannel strategy.

?This study looked at a group of people on tablets that are interested in news and for the most part satisfied with their experience,? Ms. Mitchell said. 

?It will be interesting to watch how new tablets in the market changes the population of tablet users,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York