PORTLAND, Ore. -

In what is surely to be welcome news for automakers and dealers, close to a third of consumers say they are interested in buying a new vehicle, which is almost a 10-percentage-point improvement from a year ago, according to a Chrome Systems survey.

The survey — conducted by IBOPE Zogby International — indicates that 30 percent of consumers say they are in the market for a new vehicle. A year ago, just 21 percent said the same.

“This renewed interest in new car buying is a positive sign for the automotive retail industry,” commented Amit Maheshwari, general manager of DealerTrack Data Services.

And when they’re browsing for a new ride, car shoppers are nearly twice as likely to use Web-enabled cell phone/mobile device. Specifically, nearly 25 percent of respondents said they recently shopped for or researched a vehicle on one of these phones.

Also, car shoppers are mostly researching vehicle details with these devices, looking at things like availability, inventory and trade-in values, Chrome indicated.

For the previous two years, shoppers had mainly used their devices simply to find a dealer.

"As the use of mobile devices and applications continues to become more prevalent in our everyday lives, the ability to access detailed vehicle information directly from the palm of your hand will dramatically change the overcall car buying experience," Maheshwari added. "We expect the use of mobile devices for researching and shopping for vehicles to continue to skyrocket, resulting in a positive impact on the overall automotive retail industry over the next several years."