TRENDS ON TUESDAY: LATINO USERS LEAD MOBILE USE IN U.S.

August 23, 2016 • By DigitalGov
Cross-posted from Digital Gov Blog

Editor’s Note: Today’s blog, cross-posted from DigitalGov, highlights the Pew Research Center’s report about the usage of mobile devices among Latinos. We are sharing this blog because Latinos are disproportionately impacted by the HIV epidemic. Data around this population’s Internet access and usage can help reach them more appropriately with health and HIV information.

Digital Gov Pew REport blog image - resized Aug 22

The Pew Research Center released a report in July that shows people of Latino descent are heavily reliant on mobile phones for their Internet access

, more than other ethnicities.

The report said that since 2012, the percentage of Hispanic adults who used mobile devices to access the Internet jumped from 76% to 94% in 2015. These percentages are higher than both white and African American usage in the same years.

Pew researchers said, “While Latinos have lagged other groups in accessing the internet and having broadband at home, they have been among the most likely to own a smartphone, to live in a household without a landline phone where only a cellphone is available and to access the internet from a mobile device.”

This is a very large audience with more than 55 million Hispanics living in the U.S.; it’s also one of the fastest growing and youngest groups—with more than half under the age of 18

Along with the increased audience size, the demand for Spanish content has increased with bilingual and Spanish dominant speakers accounting for 86% and 74% of the Latino audience, respectively.

Government agencies should keep this in mind when planning their digital properties, focusing on mobile-optimized and multilingual experiences to serve one of the largest and fastest growing groups

in America.

Read the Pew Report here.