LAS VEGAS -

Nearly three-fifths of car buyers turn to their mobile devices to read up on you and your fellow dealers, be it a review or a search for your store.

That’s according to the 2014 Automotive Social Media Trends Study released by Digital Air Strike at the J.D Power Marketing Roundtable on Wednesday.

“The overall trend toward the increased use of mobile technologies among consumers also holds true in this study, with 56 percent of car buyers using a mobile device to search and/or read reviews about a dealership,” the company said in a recap of its findings.

Interestingly enough, the device a consumer uses to view automotive content may depend on the time and day of the week.

Also sharing the results of a study this week at the J.D. Power event was AddThis, which said in an analysis that the “primary times that consumers engage with auto content varies by device.”

The recap of the AddThis study notes that Wednesday afternoon is prime time for using desktops to view auto content; meanwhile, they’re more apt to use tablets for auto content on Thursday evenings and mobile devices on Saturday morning.

And for dealers thinking mobile, here’s why that’s not such a bad idea:

According to comScore data cited by Contact At Once, there are 173 million smartphone owners in the U.S., which is nearly three-quarters of all mobile subscribers.

And according to eMarketer data cited in Contact at Once’s 2014 Dealer Survey Results analysis, consumers spend nearly three hours on their mobile device each day, with 43 percent never choosing to “unplug.”

What’s more, Contact At Once pointed to data from xAd-Telmetrics showing that more than a third of car-shopping research (35 percent) is conducted solely through mobile devices.

And here’s why that phone may come in handy: A Contact At Once blog post summarizing its dealer survey results shows that three-fourths of dealer respondents felt that texting a consumer for follow-up would get more response than calling.

“Society as a whole is becoming more ‘text-based’ every day, and it’s only going to increase as ‘digital native’ generations join the car-buying market,” said Contact At Once chief executive officer John Hanger.

 “More than nine in 10 of our survey respondents who shared their experiences regarding millennial shoppers said they prefer chat and text,” he added.