• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 1, 2015

According to Ooyala’s quarterly Global Video Index, younger consumers continue to drive the adoption of mobile video, seeing it as the core of their video entertainment universe. And the trend is a global one. Nearly half of all video plays in the second quarter were on mobile devices.

Smartphones continue to be the device of choice, with nearly 8 times as many plays on smartphones as on tablets. The second quarter saw mobile video plays exceed 44%, up 74% from a year ago and up a whopping 844% since Q2 2012. By the end of 2015 expect mobile to account for more than 50% of all video plays, says the report.

Consumers apparently have decided that any screen is suitable for watching any content, something that has become increasingly clear across the past few quarters. Mobile phones (32%) remain a popular screen for watching short-form video in lengths of 1–3 minutes, although PCs (32%) appeared to be equally as popular.

For longer-form content of over 10 minutes in length, views by device were more even. Tablets (57%) and connected TVs (53%) saw a slightly higher percentage of views, followed by desktop (40%) and mobile phones (33%). For content over 30 minutes in length, connected TVs (52%) were the top choice, followed by tablets (36%), mobile phones (23%) and PCs (22%), says the report.

Data continues to demonstrate increased confidence in programmatic trading among premium video publishers and broadcasters. Across a set of more than 40 European companies using Ooyala Pulse SSP, the programmatic trading platform saw significant increases in programmatic-driven revenue throughout the quarter, along with higher eCPMs and more deal ID-based transactions, which allow for one-to- one deals in a programmatic environment.

As in the general TV ecosystem, the ascendancy of mobile, both smartphones and tablets, is apparent in the realm of video advertising. In Europe and Asia, mobile ad impressions increased for both publishers and broadcasters at the expense of PCs. Broadcasters saw mobile ad impressions rise at the expense of PCs.

The increase in publisher ad impressions on mobile devices dwarfed the gains of broadcasters, taking nearly 50% of views, up more than 11%. Fill rates grew across the board for PCs, mobile devices and IPTV, a rebound from the seasonal lull that generally follows the holidays, says the report.

Broadcasters streaming long-form premium content continued to see ad completion rates at and above 90%, depending on the screen. Tablets delivered rates exceeding 92% and PCs remained above 90%. Ad completion rates for publishers also saw increases in the quarter. Tablets delivered the highest ad completion rates, followed by PCs and mobile.

Consumers are firmly embracing the concept that video can be viewed on any screen, regardless of genre. The data shows that tablets (57%) and connected TVs (53%) were used nearly equally in terms of share of time when video length exceeds 10 minutes. Desktops followed at 40%, with mobile phones coming in at 33%.

Mobile phones maintain their dominance as the devices more suited to snacking on content, with users spending 67% of their time with content less than 10 minutes long, says the report, a slight bump up from 63% in the previous quarter.  32% of time watched in the quarter was with content one-to three-minutes long. Desktop devices also saw a sizable piece of the share of time watched with video less than 10 minutes long, about 60% in the second quarter, down from 65% in Q1. When it comes to video content 30 minutes or longer, a larger screen generally showed a greater share of time watched.

Broadcasters saw ad impressions on mobile devices grow slightly to 30% from 28% a year ago. IPTV also grew to 23% from 18%. Both sectors benefited from a reduction in the amount of ad impressions on PCs, which had a share of 47% in the quarter, down from 54% in Q1.

For publishers, the growth was even starker. Mobile phones (34%) and tablets (15%) combined for 49% of ad impressions, up from just more than one third (38%) in the first quarter. Publishers saw PC impressions drop to 50% from 62% in the previous quarter.

Both shifts are likely to accelerate as the ad space evolves to serve a younger audience that is, by far, more mobile and more comfortable with both tablets and smartphones, concludes the report. 

To access the complete report in PDF format, please visit Ooyala here.