Vietnamese mobile users prefer reading news to Facebooking: survey   Around 90 percent of mobile consumers in Vietnam are 27 or younger. Photo credit: Zing A new survey on mobile advertising in Asia found a sizeable lead in data consumption by Vietnamese users, who show a strong preference for news than other types of content. The State of Mobile Advertising, an Opera Mediaworks survey conducted during the second quarter, looked into India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, the new mobile ad markets which have shown significant growth besides the influential Japan, South Korea and China. The survey named the four countries "The Power 4." Vietnamese mobile users came first in the group in data consumption, with each user using 85 megabytes per month, which is close to the global average of 90MB per month and above the regional average of 70. Users at the other three markets use between 55 to 70MB per month. The survey also found Vietnam and Indonesia have a higher percentage of high-frequency users than the global average. It describes high frequency users as those who access mobile sites and apps five days or more each week. Surprisingly, Vietnamese users prefer reading news to going on social networks. Vietnam shows a strong preference for news and information than other types of content including social networking, entertainment, business and finance, and technology and computing, according to the survey. The percentage of users accessing news sites is higher than the other surveyed countries and 20 percent higher than the global rate. In comparison, users in the Philippines and Indonesia prefer social networking while Indian users favor videos and entertainment.  The survey found the average age for mobile consumers in Vietnam is 21 and 90 percent of the users are 27 years old or younger. Another local survey published last May said more than a third of the 90 million population owned a smartphone, and 76 percent of Internet users went online on their phones every day compared to 59 percent on computers. Thanh Nien News