Tablet ownership jumps 63pc with ad spend at record high
One in four Brits now owns a tablet with ownership rocketing by 63 per cent in the last year, according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau Digital Adspend report, conducted by PwC.
Tablet ownership grew year-on-year from 11m to 17.9m in February 2014. Tablets are increasingly dominating how people access the internet, with 57 per cent of tablet owners saying it's their "go-to" device for going online.
66 per cent of owners said they found it easier using a tablet to surf the web than any other device.
Tablet owners found the device complemented other products, with 65 per cent using their tablet while watching TV. New devices such as tablets and smartphones have spread so rapidly that two thirds of people now access the internet using a PC/laptop and one other device.
The research delved not only into how consumers were going online, but what areas of their lives they believed would be most impacted without either their mobile phones or the internet.
Almost half of Britons believed their banking and financial affairs would be affected without internet or mobile phone access. Keeping up with current affairs and relationships with family and friends came in at 37 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.
With tablets and smartphones becoming an evermore central feature of consumers lives the advertising industry has been quick to follow the fast growing trend.
Investment in mobile advertising grew like-for-like by 93 per cent to over £1bn in 2013, from £529m in 2012. Mobile now makes up 16 per cent of all digital advertising spend.
Tim Elkington, director of research and strategy at the Advertising Bureau, commented:
Digital advertising continues to grow at impressive rates simply because marketers are becoming more responsive and savvy to the increasing ways people consume content across different devices