Affluent people are significantly more receptive to mobile advertising than the general population, according to a global survey of 6,000 people conducted by the BBCs commercial arm.

The BBC World News Affluent Connection survey of people from Australia, Germany, Sweden, India, Hong Kong and the US compared the habits of the top 20 per cent of earners to the rest of the public.

Interestingly, they found that mobile is twice as good as desktop at driving brand metrics across the entire population – but this rises to four times as effective among affluent consumers.

High earners are also slightly more positive about mobile ads rather than desktop – at 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively – with 41 per cent happy to see ads on free mobile services. A third of affluent consumers said that if a brand wants to be modern and dynamic, it needs to be on mobile – which was 15 per cent higher than the rest.

Richer people are more likely to use their phone for business, check it more often and are even 18 per cent more likely to share their location if it means they get a better service. They also access more current affais and business news, with these apps the most common on affluent peoples handsets.

Repeating the survey from 2012 to 2013 found that the number of affluent people who prefer using their phone to access news has risen by 15 per cent, with tablet up 9 per cent. Preference for desktop has decreased by 17 per cent, meaning more now prefer mobile than desktop for accessing this information.

“The rapidly growing importance of mobile to our global audiences is one of the big themes for our industry and we are constantly working to create the best mobile browsing experience, be that with the introduction of our international BBC News and Sports apps, or on-going responsive design innovations,” said Jim Egan, CEO of BBC Global News Ltd.

“This new research reveals significant change in mobile consumption – people are delving deeper into stories on their mobiles, consuming more video and, significantly, growing accustomed to advertising on their mobiles. This large study provides compelling evidence that mobile advertising works with affluent mobile consumers in particular and that has big implications for publishers and advertisers alike.”