Arbitron Mobile Adds Tablet Measurements to Its U.K. Mobile Trends Services

- Tablets and smartphones each garner more than an hour a day of user face time;

- Tablets top smartphones for gaming, browsing, video online and news;

- Smartphones outdo tablets for messaging, chat, maps and navigation.

LONDON, May 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) today announced the addition of tablet measurement to its UK Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels™ service.

Based on an opt-in panel of 3,500 adults aged 18 and older, the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels service in the United Kingdom can now provide app, web, media, device and network metrics for all major tablets in addition to smartphones; the latter have been available since 2009. The newly released Tablet Index reports complement the existing Smartphone Index reports.

Said Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, Senior Vice President, Arbitron Mobile, "Over the past two and a half years, our smartphone panel has earned a solid reputation as a trusted source of insights into the behaviour of the mobile consumer in the UK. We are now able to provide for tablets all the reports that we currently deliver for smartphones. Importantly, we are also able to compare and contrast the behaviour of tablet users to that of smartphone users, so that marketers, content providers, app developers and wireless access suppliers can optimise their mobile strategies in a rapidly evolving environment."

Tablets vs. Smartphones -- Usage of Online Services and Apps

Based on data from the first quarter of 2012, among tablet and smartphone users aged 18 and older in the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels services in the US and in Europe:

• Users spent an average of 62 minutes per day interacting with tablets, and 68 minutes with smartphones.
• Tablet users had longer and less frequent sessions than those of smartphone users. Smartphone users had a higher number of sessions of relatively shorter duration than those of tablet users.
• With tablets, users spent an average 25 minutes per day with communications and core device functions (email, calendar, VoIP, instant messaging, etc.) vs. an average of 35 minutes per day with smartphones.
• In online and apps usage, tablets surpassed smartphones with an average of 37 minutes per day versus an average of 33 minutes per day for smartphones.
• Comparing native apps to browser-based services, smartphone users spent about 7 times more time with apps than with their browsers; tablet users spent 4 times as much time with apps than with their browsers. 

Content Drives Tablet Usage; Utility and Communications Drive Smartphone Usage

Comparing the time spent on major categories of tablet and smartphone activities among users, during the first quarter 2012 in the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels services in the US and in Europe:

• Tablet users spent more time each month with browsers (169 minutes) than smartphone users (128 minutes).
• Tablets were used for gaming (319 minutes per month) more than smartphones (269 minutes per month).
• Online video saw more than twice as much usage on tablets (85 minutes per month) as smartphones (33 minutes per month).
• Smartphone messaging and chat (105 minutes per month) topped tablet messaging and chat (67 minutes per month).
• Maps and navigation on smartphones (137 minutes per month) far outstripped their use on tablets (56 minutes per month).

The new Tablet Index research reports in the UK add depth to the mobile data analysis and reporting available from Arbitron Mobile. The core report provides estimations of reach, frequency and engagement with tablet devices and key use cases.

The Arbitron Mobile Advertising Report in the UK provides advertising-related research services, tracking ad impressions, ad clicks, and top ad networks. Arbitron Mobile ad reports provide detailed information on the context (location, time) and user engagement (type of apps and content) with advertising-related media, most notably in display advertising. This is increasingly relevant for publishers, app and site developers, the media and advertising agencies.

The existing User Experience Report from Arbitron Mobile covers multiple factors driving user loyalty for smartphones and tablets, including battery life time, network performance and speed, coverage and dropped calls as well as memory consumption.

Clients of the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels service access reports on tablet and smartphone users via a web-based dashboard, custom reports and analyses as well as preformatted executive summaries.

Arbitron Mobile, earlier Zokem, has been operating a smartphone research panel in the UK since August 2009. The newly released research capabilities that complement the earlier smartphone-focused research and App Tracker and Executive Summary reports are now available in the UK.

Interested parties may send an inquiry to mobile@arbitron.com or call +44 (0)20 8144 2631.

About the UK Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels™ Service

Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels™ service is based on an opt-in panel of 3,500 smartphone and tablet users in the United Kingdom. These panelists voluntarily install a proprietary, on-device software meter, which allows marketers, content providers, app developers and wireless access suppliers to better understand how mobile consumers use their tablets and smartphones.

The service can detail how people use their smartphones and tablets to access apps, surf the web, engage in social media, participate in e-commerce, view and act on advertising and employ their devices to communicate.

The service also tracks online usage both over Wi Fi and cellular networks as well as offline and online apps and web usage.

About Arbitron Mobile

Arbitron Mobile currently operates syndicated mobile research panels in six countries: United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Finland and Denmark. Arbitron Mobile also operates custom panels, licenses its technology and has performed ad hoc research in approximately 50 countries worldwide. Arbitron Mobile has operated in the mobile media measurement field and provided measurement and research services for the past eight years and is the pioneer of the field with the first mobile on-device metering panels deployed for media research.

About Arbitron

Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is an international media and marketing research firm serving the media -- radio, television, cable and out-of-home; the mobile industry as well as advertising agencies and advertisers around the world. Arbitron businesses include: measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of U.S. consumers; providing mobile audience measurement and analytics in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia and developing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data. The Company has developed the Portable People Meter ™ (PPM™) and the PPM 360™, new technologies for media and marketing research.

Portable People Meter™, PPM™, PPM 360™ and Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels™ are marks of Arbitron Inc.