Over 70% of Korean adults access news on mobile devices: survey

Published : Mar 8, 2017 - 15:26 Updated : Mar 8, 2017 - 15:26

The rate of South Korean adults who access news on mobile devices has risen about 3.5 times in five years to about 71 percent, a survey showed.

In the annual survey released by the Korea Press Foundation Tuesday, 70.9 percent of respondents said they read news on Internet-connected mobile devices at least once a week in 2016, up from 19.5 percent in 2011. The comparable figure for 2015 was 65.4 percent.

The respondents were asked which media they used at least once in the past week to get news. They were allowed to give multiple answers.

(123RF)

In particular, the mobile news consumption rates for those in their 20s and 30s recorded 93.7 percent and 93.3 percent, respectively. This is the first time that the portions exceeded the 90 percent mark. The rate was 67.4 percent for the 50-59-year-old age group, up 21.4 percentage points from 46 percent in 2014.

About 26 percent of senior citizens aged 60 or older, up from 12.4 percent in 2014, said they consume mobile-based news.

Still, television remains the dominant source of news as 83.2 percent of respondents said they get TV-based news at least once a week although the rate was lower than 2011's 95.3 percent.

Internet-connected mobile devices came in second as the most-used media for news consumption, distantly followed by Internet-connected PCs (37.6 percent), printed newspapers (20.9 percent), social networking services (14.9 percent) and messaging services like KakaoTalk (14.7 percent), radio (12.7 percent) and magazines (1.1 percent).

The survey was conducted on 5,128 adults around the country from June 21 to Aug. 8, 2016. (Yonhap)