The Adobe Digital Index State of Mobile Benchmark report, which tracked mobile browsing habits of more than 150 million visits to greater than 1,500 global websites between January 2012 and February 2013, has been released.The results reveal clear differences in behaviors between smartphone users and tablet users.

Traffic Data

To put things into perspective, the study reports that in the second quarter of 2013, websites across the globe were getting more traffic from tablets than smartphones overall---despite the fact that fewer people own tablet devices than smartphones. The reason is page views.People view 70% more web pages per visit when they're using a tablet than they do when they're using a smartphone. In fact, Adobe reports that tablet users behave much more similarly to PC users when they're browsing the internet and engaging with other people online.

International Data

Things change a bit from one region of the world to the next. For example, tablet traffic is much higher in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States. On the other hand, smartphones are the preferred browsing device in China and Japan.It's important to note that although device preferences shift from one country to another, the preferred operating systems do not change. In all six of the countries researched in this study, Android and iOS account for nearly 90% of smartphone web browsing while iOS accounted for more than 77% of tablet browsing.

Content Data

For Authoritative Content publishers, the data in this report further proves how important it is to ensure you have a mobile content strategy. The study revealed that people who browse the web using mobile devices prefer to use their smartphones rather than tablets when they visit media and entertainment sites. However, you need to take a closer look at the data to really understand what's happening.Here are some key findings from the study that you should consider as you develop your mobile content strategy:

• Mobile Readership: There was a 200% increase in readers of digital publishing apps between August 2012 and February 2013.
• Digital Magazines: 75% of reading sessions occur on tablets vs. 23% on smartphones.
• Frequency: Tablet readers open their digital magazine apps twice as often each month as smartphone readers and read three times as many pages.
• Video: Tablet video viewing grew faster than smartphones between 2011 and 2012---a time when video consumption on smartphones tripled.
• Sharing: One out of three Facebook likes come from mobile devices (up by 56% from December 2012 to January 2013).

Prioritizing mobile doesn't mean you need to develop a "mobile-first" strategy, but it does mean you need to devise a "multi-platform always" strategy. You can follow the link above to download the full report from Adobe to find even more statistics as well as key opportunities to leverage the evolving mobile space. Also, be sure to read the free ebook from Newstex, The Publisher's Guide to Mobile and Tablet Development, to learn how to develop your mobile content strategy.Image: Sean MacEntee