Smartphone video starts topped 50 per cent globally for the first time, a 13.2 per cent year-over-year change and the largest in five quarters, per Ooyala’s Q2 2018 Global Video Index Report.
Despite a temporary levelling-off in the first quarter of 2018, video plays on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) surged 9.8 per cent globally in the second quarter, exceeding 62 per cent of all online videos for the first time.
Ooyala principal analyst Jim O’Neill said: “We see the Q1 pause in mobile video’s rapid growth curve as a normal transition as consumer habits and content creators’ initiatives get in alignment.
“Q2 represented a reignition of mobile-video consumption coinciding with new content initiatives, season-finale TV events and sports-season finales.
“More content creators, seeing the trend toward greater long-form video consumption on mobile devices — a trend we’ve been noting since last year — are now developing content concurrently for multiple platforms and are transitioning beyond snackable mobile-only content,” O’Neill added.
Regional Mobile Video Viewing Trends
● In North America, mobile plays increased to 56 per cent of all video starts, up 4 per cent year-over-year and up 14 per cent since Q2 2016; mobile starts in North America have exceeded 50 per cent for eight quarters; long-form time watched on smartphones topped 75 per cent;
● In the Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) region, mobile video hit 54 per cent of all starts, up from 49 per cent a year ago
● Mobile video’s share of all plays in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region was 74 per cent — the highest ever, and up 64 per cent in two years
● Latin America’s (LatAm’s) mobile starts topped 65 per cent, an increase of 20 per cent year-over-year and 38 per cent over two years.
“We’ll see a massive uptick in Q3 as more fans watch NFL games on their mobile devices, and, just as legacy TV networks use NFL games to drive traffic to other television content, this promises a spillover effect for other genres of mobile content,” O’Neill concluded.
“Content owners and distributors need to take advantage of this unprecedented period of demand to pivot into treating technology operations much as manufacturing-based industries treat manufacturing operations.
“The move to a ‘content supply chain’ is a fundamental, data-driven change transforming the media industry.”
The full Ooyala Q2 2018 Global Video Index Report can be found here.
