It is already a well-established fact that a mobile revolution is taking place across the world, as people access the Internet via their smartphones and tablets first, abandoning the desktop experience in the process.
This preference for mobile is extending to online videos, according to a report from online video firm Ooyala. Smaller screens aren’t deterring people from watching more videos on their tablets and mobile phones, and they are even spending more than half of their total online viewing time watching long-form videos on these platforms.
According to Ooyala’s report, tablet and mobile video viewing broke records in the first quarter of 2013. The share of tablet and mobile video grew 19 percent in Q1 2013, and made up more than 10 percent of all online video plays during the period. The growth rate for Q1 2013 was similar to the pace seen in 2012, Ooyala says, when the share of mobile and tablet viewing doubled between January 1 and December 31.
“TV is no longer a single screen in the living room. Video publishers who fail to deliver and monetize mobile content on tablets and smartphones are leaving digital dollars on the table,” Ooyala says.
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In a further indication that screen size is not the key concern for viewers, Ooyala’s report showed that both mobile and tablet video viewers spent more than half of their total video viewing time watching long-form videos (referring to those more than 10 minutes long) last quarter. Out of this, a quarter of total tablet viewing time is spent with content more than 60 minutes long.
In particular, viewers in Asia are avid long-form video watchers. Viewing of such longer-duration videos accounted for nearly half (45 percent) of the total time spent watching video online in Malaysia last quarter. Viewers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand spent more than one-third of their total online viewing time watching videos longer than ten minutes across all device types.
Ooyala’s findings also show that live video continues to dominate on-demand video content – desktop viewers watched live video an average of 40 mins, 13 times longer than VOD last quarter.
“Breaking news, live sports, and special events have an inherent immediacy that hooks connected viewers and leads to longer viewing times across all devices,” Ooyala says.
In particular, the Asia-Pacific region is seeing an upptick in live video viewing. Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea all watch live video at least 20 times longer than VOD content, with Singapore leading the region in time per live play, chalking up an average live viewing session of 52 minutes.
Ooyala measures the anonymized viewing habits of nearly 200 million unique viewers in 130 countries every month.
Video is not the only trend that is being mobilized now. According to a recent Nielsen ‘State of Social Media Report’, half of the world’s social network users visit sites via their phones, with 59 percent of social media users in APAC interacting with Twitter, Facebook and other services directly from a mobile device.
Headline image via Thinkstock
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