A recent report from research firm comScorce has revealed that iPhone users are more likely to use their devices for tasks such as email, news reading and social networking than their other smartphone counterparts.

According to tech news site VnuNet, comScore's inaugural report found that UK iPhone users are far more likely to use premium data services than users of any other smartphones. 79.7 per cent of iPhone owners browsed news headlines on their handsets and 75.4 percent were using the email capabilities of their phones.

This could be bad news for RIM's Blackberry - the device that is commonly thought of as having successfully captured the majority of the business market. In fact, overall only 48 per cent of smartphone users make use of the browser on their device and only 35.4 make use of their handsets for email.

However, social networking is another area that sees the iPhone stripping ahead of the competition with 54.8 per cent making use of networking applications compared to 29.6 per cent amongst all smartphones. What's more, with 55.1 versus 31.9 users making use of web search capabilities, these figures are sure to endear iPhones to massive internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo!.

Alistair Hill, comScore analyst, suggested that the iPhone's much aped touchscreen is likely to have influenced these figures, but that it has not been the only factor in play. According to VnuNet, he said: "While the device’s ease of use is certainly contributing to the lift we see in mobile media consumption, the fact that the device requires a subscription package that includes an unlimited data plan is also a contributing factor.

 "However, it is also important to note that while nearly all iPhone owners are consuming mobile media, the device is in the hands of only two percent of mobile phone users in the UK."