Mobile Phones Strengthen Lead for Mobile Video Viewing

Mobile phones continue to expand their share of mobile video traffic, and they’re responsible for the format’s increasing portion of total digital video views.

In Q1 2015, Ooyala monitored activity on its network and found that mobile phones accounted for 34% of digital video views worldwide during that time period, vs. a mere 7% for tablets. Over the course of a year, mobile phones had grown their share of total digital video views by 126.7%, driving mobile’s overall portion up 95.2% year over year, from 21% to 41%.

Short-form content remains the most popular type of video viewed on mobile phones. In Q1 2015, videos under 3 minutes accounted for nearly half of time spent watching video via such devices. In comparison, nearly 60% of time spent with tablet video was devoted to content longer than 10 minutes?more than any other device listed.

Similarly, when May 2015 polling by On Device Research for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) asked smartphone video viewers worldwide about the frequency with which they watched short vs. long videos via such devices, 57% said they consumed content shorter than 5 minutes daily or several times per day, vs. 35% who said the same for long content.

Smartphone video viewers may only spend a few minutes with each video, but they’re willing to sit through ads to access these if it means saving a few dollars. IAB found that 78% of respondents would rather watch free mobile videos with ads, vs. 15% who would rather pay for a monthly mobile video subscription with no ads and 8% who would rather pay for each mobile video with no ads.

FreeWheel found that advertisers were following mobile video viewers’ eyeballs. Fully 17% of digital video ad views in the US in Q1 2015 were served to smartphones, vs. 8% for tablets.