According to a report from Pew Internet Research, the percentage of American adults owning tablets nearly doubled during the 2012 holiday season. Internet marketers now stand to reach a larger number of on-the-go consumers with content marketing as research from Pew found that 19 percent of adults now own tablets, compared to 10 percent who owned the mobile computing devices prior to the holidays.
E-reader purchases also skyrocketed during the holidays, with nearly 20 percent using Nooks, Kindles and other devices.
According to Pew, the second and third quarters of 2011 were especially weak in terms of tablet growth, as ownership remained fairly stagnant. However, holiday shopping fervor paired with the release of the Amazon Kindle Fire drove impressive surges late in the year.
For marketers, increased tablet ownership puts an especially high premium on content mostly likely to engage the growing audience. In terms of e-readers, the limited capability of these devices makes their growth decidedly less important.
Still, with almost one-fifth of Americans owning tablets, news content marketing may be a strong method of targeting this audience. Brafton recently reported that more than half of tablet users said they access news content on their devices every day. Additionally, tablet users read more news articles on the web than those who just own smartphones or laptops.
