44 Per Cent of Online Video Views on Mobile Devices

Mobile-video49 per cent of all video ad impressions for publishers were on mobile devices Q2 2015, an 11 per cent increase from the previous quarter. In addition, 44 per cent of all online video viewing is now on mobile devices. Both stats come from the Q2 2015 Global Video Index report from Ooyala, which specializes in premium video publishing, analytics and monetization.

Since Q2 2012, mobile viewing has grown at an annual compound growth rate of 111 per cent, peaking at that 44 per cent of all online viewing figure in Q2 2015. This growth represents an increase of 844 per cent since 2012. That said, this is the first quarter that mobile viewing hasn’t increased at a double-digit rate, though signs point to double digit year-on-year year growth. ZenithOptimedia, a global media services network, expects global online viewing to grow by 23 per cent in 2015, and another 20 per cent in 2016, and attributes the majority of growth to mobile viewing as smartphones and tablets penetrate global markets.

The Ooyala report reveals that smartphones received eight times more plays than tablets during Q2. Ooyala’s data suggest that by year’s end, 50 per cent of all online video starts will be on mobile devices as smartphone screens become larger, viewers increasingly watch long-form premium content, and more mobile operators package premium content into their services.

Mobile phones (32 per cent) remain a popular screen for watching short-form video in lengths of 1-3 minutes, although PCs (32 per cent) are equally popular. When it comes to longer-form content of over 10 minutes in length, views by device were more even. Tablets (57 per cent) and connected TVs (53 per cent) saw a slightly higher percentage of views, followed by desktop (40 per cent) and mobile phones (33 per cent).

The report also reveals the continued growth of programmatic trading among premium broadcasters and publishers, as demonstrated by a sample of more than 40 European broadcasters using Ooyala Pulse SSP, the company’s programmatic trading technology. From the beginning of March 2015 through June 2015, these companies saw their eCPMs increase more than 25 per cent on average, while their collective programmatic advertising revenue grew 119 per cent.

The growth is accredited to the increase of programmatic direct deals. Deal ID transactions, which allow for one-to-one deals in a programmatic environment, grew at a monthly rate of 79 per cent in Q1 2015, and in Q2, deal IDs grew more than two times that rate, at 176 per cent.

Also in June 2015, eCPMs from programmatic direct deals were more than double those traded via marketplaces. Ooyala said this demonstrates that large brands and advertisers are more comfortable purchasing premium video inventory in private programmatic settings. In fact, eMarketer expects programmatic direct deals to reach $8.6bn (£5.5bn) in the US by 2016, representing 42 per cent of all programmatic ad spend.

“Its all about mobile,” said Ooyala principal analyst, Jim O’Neill. “From the array of devices on which we watch TV to the way the industry has begun to treat ad inventories, all signs point to mobile as the key to a bigger, better TV business. This quarter’s growth of broadband subscribers and the corresponding loss of pay-TV subscribers, paired with the increase of digital ad spend by brands and agencies is the evidence that business models, budgets and strategies from broadcasters to advertisers are changing dramatically to align with viewer behaviour.”

The report reflects the anonymised online video metrics of the vast majority of Ooyala’s 500-plus customers, whose collective audience numbers hundreds of millions of viewers across the world, enabling Ooyala to capture 3.5bn analytics events each day.

In 2014, the company ingested and transcoded over 100m minutes of video. That content was delivered to over 220m unique users around the world, who played over 10bn streams, comprising almost 30bn hours of video. Over the course of the year, Ooyala managed inventory for 30bn video ad impressions, and delivered over 11bn ads.