A Game Changing Year for Mobile
- In December 2010, nearly 47 percent of mobile subscribers in the U.S. were mobile media users (browsed the mobile web, accessed applications, downloaded content or accessed the mobile Internet via SMS) up 7.6 percentage points from the previous year.
- The growth in mobile media usage is largely attributable to the growth in smartphone adoption, 3G/4G device ownership and the increasing ubiquity of unlimited data plans, all of which facilitate the consumption of mobile media.
- From December 2009 to December 2010, the percentage of mobile phone subscribers with unlimited data plans increased from 21.3 percent to 29.0 percent, with more phones now requiring an unlimited data plan subscription at the time of purchase.
- During the same period, smartphone ownership increased from 16.8 percent to 27.0 percent, while 3G/4G phone ownership reached 51 percent in December 2010.



As an example, comScore conducted an analysis over a 24-hour period in the U.S. on online newspaper readers’ consumption habits revealed some interesting insights on the synergies across devices – PC, smartphone and iPad. Overall PC viewing accounted for 97 percent of all online newspaper views during the 24 hour period, while smartphones accounted for 2 percent and the iPad accounted for less than 1 percent. When looking at how Americans utilized these devices differently throughout the day to consume news, it was observed that morning hours saw similar relative readership across all three devices. While in the afternoon, online newspaper readership peaked on PC and while at night iPad readers consumed more news on the device than during the day.
[Update on 15-Mar-11: South by South West, the social media & technology conference held each year in Austin, Texas is buzzing with news that Mashable reported: people now read more news via internet devices than from newspapers: "Poynter’s research showed that almost half of Americans in a survey said they got at least some of their news on a mobile device or tablet. As tablet makers, app makers and news outlets continue to perfect the news consumption experience on that form factor, we’ll have a whole new breed to analyze and fret over this time next year." It really is a trend impacting content providers, technologists, businesses, advertisers and market researchers alike.]

Obviously for market researchers this is interesting because if we are to get qualitative insights from our respondents, we need to consider the most appropriate qualitative research design for the way people are actually using their mobile devices. In the new mobile world, consumer is king and we had better ask the right questions, optimized for the right device, taking into consideration the user experience, if we are to gather rich data for insights. If your client wants to know how 26-54 year old women spend their leisure time and why, then how would you adjust your research design to target the respondent who is on their mobile tablet at night?
Download the full report here: http://www.comscore.com/index.php//Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/2010_Mobile_Year_in_Review

entry of WebOs, Android and the like. But have you ever browsed the mobile web on anything other than a Palm, Windows Mobile, iPhone or Blackberry? It's miserable. My Samsung SPH-a920 is awesome - I'd recommend it to anyone, as long as you don't brwose the mobile web.