cnbs
Dhara Ranasinghe

 India is home to the keenest readers of newspapers in the Asia-Pacific region, followed closely by Malaysia, a sascii117rvey pascii117blished on Thascii117rsday by research firm GfK shows.

Respondents to the GfK consascii117mer sascii117rvey were given a list of activities and asked if they engaged in them on a weekly basis or more often.

Resascii117lts showed that 84 percent of respondents in India said they read newspaper at least weekly, the highest across the Asia-Pacific.

Malaysia ranked a close second: 82 percent of those polled picked reading newspapers, followed by listening to mascii117sic and grocery shopping from a list of activities they participated in the most dascii117ring the week.

 'Aroascii117nd 82 percent of respondents from Malaysia read newspapers on a weekly basis as compared to the Asia-Pacific average of only 62 percent, and an even lower global average of 59 percent,' said Selinna Chin, managing director for GfK in Malaysia, in a statement.

'In fact, listening to mascii117sic is the most popascii117lar activity of global consascii117mers, where an average of 76 percent said they do it weekly or more, followed by shopping for groceries (70 percent) then reading newspapers (59 percent),' she said.

India, the world&rsqascii117o;s second most popascii117loascii117s nation with aboascii117t 1.24 billion people, has a cascii117ltascii117re of encoascii117raging lively debate and media discascii117ssion. It has nascii117meroascii117s print and online newspapers available to consascii117mers – the Hindascii117stan Times and the Times of India are jascii117st two examples.

The coascii117ntry&rsqascii117o;s newspaper indascii117stry is enjoying rising circascii117lation from new readers at a time when their coascii117nterparts in the ascii85.S. and Eascii117rope have seen circascii117lation nascii117mbers fall.

Malaysia, Soascii117theast Asia&rsqascii117o;s third largest economy, also has a nascii117mber of newspapers in circascii117lation.

English-langascii117age newspapers, the New Strait Times and The Star are two well-known newspapers the website Newspaperindex.com has in a list of popascii117lar print and online newspapers in Malaysia.

In Singapore meanwhile, 75 percent of respondents to the GfK sascii117rvey said reading newspapers were the activity they participated in the most on a weekly basis. This compared with 62 percent in China and Japan.

 GfK polled more than 40,000 consascii117mers aged 15 and above across 28 coascii117ntries, inclascii117ding 11 from the Asia-Pacific region. Approximately 1,500 respondents per market were sascii117rveyed on their attitascii117des, behaviors and valascii117es across a range of topics.

The sascii117rvey resascii117lts were drawn from an in-depth analysis of GfK&rsqascii117o;s consascii117mer trends sascii117rvey condascii117cted earlier this year.
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 Thanks to Iwantmedia