Seattle - Apple's (NASD: AAPL) iPhone is handily beating competitors in the smartphone category, and blowing away the cell phone market in general when it comes to using a mobile phone to access news or information, watch live or on-demand video, access social networks or listen to music, according to a report from market research firm M:Metrics. In January, 85% of iPhone users accessed news or information, compared with 58.2% of smartphone owners and 13.1% of all cell phone owners; while 49.7% of iPhone visited a social networking site or blog, compared with 19.4% smartphones/4.2% total market.

"While the demographics of iPhone users are very similar to all smartphone owners, the iPhone is outpacing other smartphones in driving mobile content consumption by a significant margin," said M:Metrics senior analyst Mark Donovan.

Similarly, 30.9% of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video in January, compared with 14.2% of smartphone owners and 4.6% of the total mobile market, and 74.1% of iPhone owners listened to music, as opposed to 27.9% smartphone/6.7% total market.

"Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video," added Donovan.

As for native applications on the iPhone itself, the study found that 30.4% of iPhone owners accessed YouTube (NASD: GOOG) on their phones in January, while 36% used Google Maps.

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