tablets gaining on smartphones

As the smartphone market slows, tablets are becoming an increasingly popular way of consuming media, playing games and accessing data, according to a new report by mobile advertising network Jumptap.

Jumptap, which helps companies understand mobile audiences and cater to them, said tablets last year accounted for 18% of mobile traffic on its advertising network, which covers 134 million mobile customers in the United States and a total of 206 million worldwide. 

That represents a sharp jump from the 7% of mobile traffic on the network in 2011, the company said. Smartphones represented 78% of the network’s traffic, but their share is rapidly shrinking: Jumptap projects that tablets will make up close to one-third of its network traffic by the end of 2013.