In June 2011, I wrote an article on the Corporate Eye blog discussing predictions that mobile content consumption would surpass online content consumption in the near future. Fast forward to July 2013, and it happened.
According to research conducted by eMarketer last month, the average time per day that U.S. adults spent with major media using mobile devices was 2 hours and 21 minutes, which is two minutes more than they spent consuming online content.
The eMarketer study also revealed that the growth in mobile content consumption has led to digital content consumption (including online and mobile) surpassing television content consumption for the first time. Together, U.S. adults spent 5 hours and nine minutes per day during July 2013 consuming digital content compared to 4 hours and 31 minutes consuming television content. Coming in third place was radio at 1 hour and 26 minutes followed by print at 32 minutes. The full breakdown follows:
- Digital = 5:09
- Television = 4:31
- Radio = 1:26
- Print = 0:32
- Other = 0.14
- Total = 11.52
Clearly, mobile has changed the media landscape. Looking at the data another way, eMarketer found that mobile surpassed desktop for the first time based on the share of time spent per day with major media by U.S. adults. In this study, digital came out on top followed by television with mobile accounting for 19.8% of time spent with major media per day and online (desktop) accounting for 19.5%. The full breakdown is below:
- Digital = 44.4%
- Television = 38.1%
- Radio = 12.1%
- Print = 4.5%
- Other = 1.0%
- Total = 11:52
Not only are people consuming more content using mobile devices, they’re also sharing it more frequently using their mobile devices. Research by ShareThis conducted in June 2013 found that globally people are twice as likely to share content using mobile devices than desktop computers. iPhone users topped the list with 12.4% of this group sharing online content using their iPhones, which is significantly higher than the 7% of Android users who shared content through their devices. The top three sites that drive a lot of mobile shares, according to this study, are Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.
It’s hard to believe that it was just two years ago that I wrote the article about predictions for mobile media consumption to overtake desktop content consumption. Mobile changed the media landscape and there is no turning back now. Your brand is either ahead of the mobile curve or you’re already trying to figure out how to catch up. One thing is for certain, we might not be at a place where brand marketers need to follow a mobile-first marketing strategy yet but that time will probably get here sooner than you think.
Your thoughts? Leave a comment below and share your opinion.
Image: Sergio Roberto Bichara
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye
I would be scared to count how long I spend on my phone, tablet or laptop. Companies need to get on board with mobile websites and content that is built around portable devices and the ability to share things quickly and efficiently.