• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 22, 2014

Opera Mediaworks over the summer acquired mobile video ad network AdColony to capitalize on the growing audience for watching video on devices, especially in the U.S. In its latest mobile ad report released today, the company said one in 10 of the ads delivered through its platform in the U.S. is now video.

As a result of the AdColony acquisition, Opera Mediaworks — which boasts reach of 800 million unique visitors globally —  spotlighted some of the trends it’s seeing in mobile video advertising. With 10% of mobile ad impressions coming from video, the U.S. is just above the global average of 8.7%. But it still lags various European countries where the share of video ads is much higher. That includes France (34%), Spain (28%) and Italy (17.5%).

Not surprisingly, entertainment companies are the most likely to run mobile video campaigns. They account for 22% of mobile video impressions, followed by CPG (18%) and financial services (13%). The retail sector, generally one of the top-spending categories in mobile, hasn’t really embraced video, according to Opera’s third-quarter report. Among the 11 industry categories, it was at the bottom for share of video ad impressions, at 3%, along with mobile phone services.

When it comes to ad formats, mobile video spots tend to be short — 15 seconds or less. “Perhaps it’s the influence of Vine and Instagram, but advertisers are spending more on shorter-form videos,” noted the report. While the average length of a video impression is 20.6 seconds, more than half (53%) are under that length, and 35% are longer.

Looking at video ads by device, Android overall accounted for the largest share of impressions, at 51.5% compared to 48.5% for iOS. But the Apple platform had a higher proportion of video ads — 48.5% compared to 32% of all mobile impressions, while Android made up 61.5% of total impressions. Video impressions on the iPad and Android tablets were higher than their overall market share.

“This highlights the fact that devices with improved viewing experiences accelerate the adoption of mobile video advertising,” stated the report. The growth of the tablet market itself this year, however, has slowed dramatically, with IDC predicting shipments will grow only 6.5% worldwide in 2014 and be flat in North America.

The U.S. audience watching video on smartphones alone in the second quarter grew to 114.4 million — up 18% from 97 million in the year-earlier period, according to the latest Nielsen cross-platform report. Nielsen introduced its Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) service for mobile Web and in-app measurement in July to help bolster cross-platform buys. But the broad adoption of unified reporting and measurement that would further benefit mobile ad growth is still at an early stage.