Mobile Video Consumption to Surpass 693 Billion Minutes by 2015

Mobile video consumption is a rapidly developing market. Although many mobile video products have only recently launched, providers are experiencing significant growth in usage rates. According to In-Stat survey results, nearly two-thirds of smartphone owners have watched video on their device, while nearly 86 percent of tablet owners have done so.

While the propensity to watch full length premium video is only a portion of these viewers, these numbers indicate the potential market demand. These examples are indicative of a larger trend of strong growth in mobile video consumption worldwide. New In-Stat research forecasts mobile video consumption to surpass 693 billion minutes by 2015.

“As content restrictions are liberalized and the proliferation of smartphone and tablet devices continues to expand, so too will mobile video consumption,” says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst. “However, it is important to note that the consumption differs significantly between smartphones, tablets, and notebook/netbooks. Differences include content length, content genre, and content acquisition. Content providers need to customize their offerings by target platform.”

Some of the research findings include:
• There are significantly more smartphone viewers than tablet viewers currently. However, the gap will narrow in coming years.
• Tablet viewer watch more video and are willing to pay a higher price for that video compared to smartphone viewers.
• The majority of video access is occurring in a non-mobile environment, often in the home, particularly for tablet devices and in the consumption of long-form video.
• The largest barriers to mobile video growth are those erected by content owners, followed by network capacity issues.

In-Stat