ComScore has released data that show smartphones in the U.S. now total 33.8 million units — a 63 percent year-over-year increase. But the highlight of the report was that touchscreen devices outpace even this with 159 percent year-over-year growth to 23.8 million units.

The report separates the two — so touchscreen devices aren’t counted as a subset of smartphones. All together, they total about 58 million units. If you consider that they’re all essentially smartphones and generally considered to be, these data put smartphone penetration above 20 percent (using 270 million subscribers as a denominator) for the first time.

Our own Mobile Market View consumer survey has just been completed in Wave III, and offers a glimpse into users’ mobile buying patterns. I can’t talk about the data just yet but I can say that we saw a similar increase in smartphone ownership — surprisingly high in my mind. More to come on that.

Bottom line is that smartphones correlate to mobile Web usage and the growth of data consumption. Touchscreen devices skew data consumption to even greater levels, led by the iPhone. All this bodes well for local categories of content, which themselves are growing in app and mobile Web formats.

This will be the topic of a session during our mobile “Superforum” at the Interactive Local Media conference taking place next month in Los Angeles.

Segment II. Location & Monetization: Ad Targeting in a Mobile World: 4:40 – 5:05

Smart phones are getting smarter and data plans are getting cheaper. As more users carry mobile computers, what are the implications for local search and discovery, given portability and location awareness? As users flock towards the mobile web and advertisers follow, what strategies, opportunities and pitfalls await location based ad targeting?

Speakers:

Meredith Papp, Director, Product Marketing, Google

Alistair Goodman, CEO, 1020 Placecast

Rahul Sonnad, Founder, Geodelic