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Portable Entertainment Device Study

More than 152 million Americans -- about 70 percent of the total U.S. adult population -- now own portable entertainment devices, according to a new report from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

"The increasing number of consumers who own portable entertainment devices is creating a huge market for handheld content," said Steve Koenig, the CEA's senior manager of industry analysis. "In fact, we estimate that consumers who own these devices will spend $8.3 billion on entertainment content for them in the next 12 months."

Study results indicate that listening to music and communicating with others through e-mail are the most common activities for adults using the various devices. Sixty-eight percent of online adults said they used their portable devices to listen to music; the study found MP3 player household penetration has grown to 15 percent, up from 11 percent a year ago. The study also found that wireless phones and handheld PCs are the most common devices used to access handheld content, due in part to the wide variety of content available.

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