WhatsApp, Facebook widely used for news, trust in television low: Report

Online platforms like WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook are widely used for news consumption in India, according to an annual report by Reuters Institute. According to the global survey, India has emerged as one of the strongest mobile focussed markets, with 73% of users accessing news through smartphones and only 37% using computers.

The reason behind the relatively greater use of smartphones than computers for news consumption is because many of the 600 million active internet users access the internet only through mobile phones, aided by low data charges and cheap devices, as per the survey. More than half of the respondents said they use WhatsApp and YouTube for news consumption.