Video vibe keeps growing and growing

Ooyala has again released their Global Video Index (GVI), which measures the anonymised viewing habits of viewers in most countries around the world.

The new edition of the report provides some more insights into online video trends. Approximately 46% of all video plays in the fourth quarter of the 2015 were on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones), up from 34% in the year earlier quarter. Tablet and smartphone video plays grew 35% in 2015 and have exploded 170% since 2013. The vast majority of these plays are on smartphones, shown in blue in the chart below:

Source: Ooyala 4Q15 Global Video Index

In the last quarter of 2015, Ooyala estimates that video was played 6 times more often on smartphones than tablets.

Viewers appear to becoming more screen agnostic, although for long form content, bigger screens still understandably have the edge. Smartphones are mostly used to view short form content, with 69% of the videos watched on them less than 10 minutes long. These bite-sized videos can be consumed on a commute or during a short break over lunch on your mobile.

Connected TVs (CTV) remain the top choice for content 30-60 minutes in length, or over 60 minutes as shown in the below chart.

Source: Ooyala 4Q15 Global Video Index

Still, as can be seen in the distribution of the chart above, desktop and tablets were still relevant for consuming video in 4Q15, particularly for any below 60 minutes in length. It seems people are in many cases just using whatever is the most convenient.

Nevertheless, with improving speeds across networks, the expansion of data caps and cheaper data prices, mobile devices able to access networks (i.e. smartphones and tablets with sim cards) are likely to keep taking share as the most convenient way to consume content, especially when it is relatively short bites. The millenenial generation and younger also tend to be more ‘mobile’ in their video consumption.

Source Ooyala and Fat Prophets report