This year’s Orange Exposure report, an independent study by TNS on behalf of Orange, has revealed a wide range of information about mobile media habits across the UK, France, Spain and Poland. Although this is the fourth annual report, it’s the first time tablet data has been included.

According to the research, smartphones are generally used to ‘kill time’ when access to other screens isn’t available, while tablets are used to ‘save time’ when using other screens would be less efficient.

In the UK, 35% of tablet users are watching on-demand content, 40% are watching streaming content and 39% are ‘watching TV’ on their tablet; evidence that tablet devices are cannibalising home TV viewing. In addition, the UK has also seen a 15% decrease in PC usage.

Conversely, 19% per cent of smartphone users in France say they watch more TV as a result of their mobile media usage. Similarly, 20% of UK customers feel they browse on the PC more and 15% read more online newspapers as a result of engaging with mobile multimedia. 

Bruce Hoang, Group Marketing Director for the Orange Advertising Network, said “This is the first time we have included tablet usage in the Orange Exposure report and the findings are quite stark in their description of how people are using devices. Clearly the one size fits all approach for digital content across TV, PC, smartphone and tablet does not work and this has significant implications for content producers and advertisers.”

The mobile browser is still favoured over mobile applications as the preferred format for accessing online information and content. 76% of UK mobile media users use their phone’s browser to access content, as opposed to 59% using a mobile application.  When it comes to tablets, 78% of UK tablet users access the internet by searching in a browser compared to 64% via apps.

[Orange Exposure 2011 fast facts (pdf)]