This article was published on July 3, 2013

Global video service Viki hits 10 million mobile app downloads, up nearly 7-fold from a year ago


Global video service Viki hits 10 million mobile app downloads, up nearly 7-fold from a year ago

Viki, a Singapore-based global video site, has chalked up 10.2 million mobile app downloads – marking a nearly 7-fold growth from June last year when downloads stood at 1.5 million.

Viki noted in a blog post that on average, iOS users watched 2.5 times more content than Android users – but for the second quarter of 2013, Android devices made up 58.6 percent of those that downloaded Viki’s mobile app, while Apple devices made up 35.6 percent. Windows and BlackBerry had a combined 5.8 percent share.

The company also said that over 41 percent of viewers are accessing its mobile app via tablets and most users were sharing videos via Facebook (60 percent on Android and 45.1 percent on iOS).

English was the top subtitle language on mobile apps, while Spanish, Arabic and Indonesian took up the next three spots. Indonesia has been a strong showing for Viki – after US and Canada, the third-largest source of Viki mobile viewers come from the sprawling Southeast Asian nation. Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore also rank among Viki’s top ten countries for mobile viewers.

The video site has been pushing to broaden its appeal in Southeast Asia. Earlier this year, the video site signed a deal with NBCUniversal (NBCU) that saw it license a number of the US broadcaster’s top entertainment programs for distribution across Southeast Asia. Subsequently in May, it inked a deal with Universal Music to offer the label’s entire worldwide music video collection in South Korea and nine markets in Southeast Asia.

Viki made its debut streaming movie and TV shows from a diverse range of countries and global broadcasters, including NBCU. It makes the content accessible globally thanks to its unique, crowdsourced translations, which are managed and translated entirely by its community.

The company had previously noted that 30 percent of its views come from mobile devices, marking the importance of a mobile strategy. This comes as online video firm Ooyala recently released a report saying that the share of tablet and mobile video broke records in Q1 2013, growing 19 percent and making up more than 10 percent of all online video plays during the period.

Headline image via Thinkstock

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