20 per cent of UK smartphone or tablet owners get their primary news updates from their smartphone or tablet, while 52 per cent check two or more news sites or apps from their devices daily.
These are two of the key findings from Mojiva’s State of Mobile News Consumption report, which reveals that mobile devices have become a go-to source for news. The UK has the highest percentage of frequent mobile news users in the EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK).
Despite this, however, 69 per cent of UK smartphone respondents would not pay for a subscription to access their favourite news source from their smartphone or tablet. This, says Mojiva, means that the majority of revenue from news sites on mobile has to come from advertising.
The study was carried out between 26 September and 3 October, 2012, among UK smartphone owners. The results are based on 1,000 responses from a random sample. Mojiva says it conducted the study to determine how smartphone and tablet users in the UK access news through their mobile devices, and to examine their receptiveness to mobile advertising. 
The study also found that 8 per cent of UK smartphone owners read news on their devices while watching TV in the evenings. 65 per cent will pay more attention to mobile ads if the content is relevant to the news story they are reading or watching on their mobile device. The top three factors for mobile advertising receptiveness in the UK are personalization/relevance (24 per cent), humour/entertainment (20 per cent), and a minimal presence of fewer ads overall (16 per cent).
“People who read the news aren’t necessarily giving up one platform in favour of a different or newer platform, but are instead morphing into ‘multi-platform’ consumers for different news experiences,” said Mojiva VP, global research and strategic communications, Amy Vale. “Reading the news in print, or even online, is a much more immersive experience given the nature of the screen size, whereas reading news on a mobile device gives consumers up-to-the-minute information on breaking news the second it becomes available, wherever they may be.”
Mojiva’s ad network represents 8,000 mobile and tablet publishers and apps, and reaches more than 1.1 billion devices globally. You can access the full report here.
