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There are still so many possibilities for mobile videos and brands have only scratched the surface. This research shows where brands should focus their efforts as consumers increasingly turn to mobile devices for information and entertainment.

Mobile devices have made video consumption and sharing simpler and more possible, even though many brands still haven’t mastered the kind of content that belongs in mobile videos and what tone they should take.

Consumers watch more videos on mobile devices than they did a year ago and aren’t totally opposed to paying for them, according to new survey research from the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. The survey was distributed to more than 2,000 Internet users worldwide in 24 markets on all continents between April and May 2015.

The general consensus for mobile has been to make everything more concise and smaller, and the results show even though shorter videos of less than five minutes are still watched more than longer videos, more than one-third of respondents said they watch mobile videos of five minutes or more.

Below are eight charts explaining the state of mobile video around the world:

Chart 1: Watching short videos less than five minutes long on a smartphone is more popular than viewing long videos of five minutes or more.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 2: Latin America has the highest levels of frequent mobile video consumers for both video types and East Asia is lower than the global average for both long and short video viewing.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 3: Wi-Fi is critical for mobile video viewing as 35% of respondents said they watch more videos on smartphones than a year ago. Smartphone video consumption has also increased the most in the U.S. and Canada.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 4: Mobile apps are the most used platforms for mobile video watching with nearly half of respondents saying they only or mostly use mobile apps to watch videos on smartphones.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 5: TV ads and mobile ads overlap for two-thirds of respondents but nearly a third said they rarely or never see the same ads on both mobile and TV.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 6: More respondents in the U.S. (25%), U.K. (25%) and China (30%) have paid for videos to watch on mobile more so than most other European respondents.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 7: While most would prefer free mobile video with ads 23% are still willing to pay.

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

Chart 8: Social media has opened the floodgates to video sharing and 75% of U.S. and 73% of Latin American respondents, the highest percentages, say they share mobile videos with others. On the country level, 81% of Chinese respondents said they share mobile video, the most of any country, while Japan had the lowest percentage of respondents indicating they share (about 30%).

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Source: IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence

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Tags: online video, videos

Photo credit: Videos on mobile devices are consumed more heavily than they were a year ago. David Erickson / Flickr

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