For the past few years, pundits have claimed it’s the year of mobile.

What they meant to say is: Newspapers on mobile are hot.

More than half of the digital population visits newspaper Web sites, according to the World Association of Newspapers. And those consumers use one or more mobile devices to do so.

In Canada (I imagine similar numbers will be found elsewhere), we have found two out of every six newspaper media visits each day are via mobile (tablet or phone).

If you look at tablet newspaper readers specifically, they visit newspaper sites/apps four times in a day. And mobile phone newspaper readers (looking at our sites or getting updates via e-mail) read us four times in a day.

Furthermore, according to the Pew Research Center, the top two activities each day on a tablet are e-mail (44%) and getting the news (37%). When we move to weekly data, the two activities are essentially tied at 65% and 64%, respectively.

The same research shows the following smartphone activities are key: e-mail (61%), social networking sites (46%), and news (36%). When we move to the weekly data, news pops up and is as dominant as social media (62%), behind e-mail at 80%.

E-mail and news are the top activities on mobile.

Interestingly, this is not the case for TV. In January 2013, the Council for Research Excellence undertook research that found only 2% of total TV viewership occurred on a tablet or smartphone.

Randy Cohen, president and CEO of Advertiser Perceptions Inc.,  commented that — unlike with earlier digital media like search (where Google drove ad innovation) or social (where Facebook and Twitter are driving innovation) — ad executives don’t yet perceive any media entity as a market “leader” in developing the mobile marketplace.

Right now, according to Cohen, the mobile advertising marketplace is still looking for leaders who can drive innovation and help organise it from a marketing perspective.

Newspapers are leading in mobile. Advertisers, take note!

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