A new BBC survey has underlined the importance of mobile phones in content consumption – especially news, and shown that Indians are ahead of others when it comes to using mobile phones for productivity purposes. 
The study, carried out among 6,000 smartphone owners in Australia, Germany, Sweden, India, Hong Kong and the US, found that 56% of affluent consumers in India prefer to use their mobile device to access news, rather than using a desktop.
The study classified affluent users as those who belong to the top 20% in terms of income.
The percentage of affluent users prefering the mobile phone over desktops was higher in India, compared to 30% for the affluent class in the survey as a whole.
The BBC survey found that 52% of affluent consumers in India are more likely to share stories on mobile rather than desktop, compared 31% for all affluent consumers.
55% of affluent Indian consumers access the internet hourly in India on mobile devices vs. 39% of total affluent consumers, the survey found.
The findings are not surprising, given that the penetration of PCs in India is far far below that of mobile phones.
More on the general survey — news apps are the most commonly used mobile phone apps for affluent consumers, whilst social network apps are favoured by the general population.
When asked which single device they prefer to use for news, globally, the number of affluent consumers who name the mobile phone has risen by 15% since 2012 and tablet is up by 9%.In contrast, the amount of people who say they prefer desktop has decreased by 17%, the survey said.
34% of new handset users surveyed in the new study say they now dive deeper when consuming news and are likely to read additional articles connected the original piece.
“This is 42% higher than for those using older handsets. Owners of the latest handsets are also 10% more likely than the general population to watch news video or stream content on their mobile phones,” BBC said.
“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,” said Jim Egan, CEO of BBC Global News Ltd.
