comScore Sees Surge in EU Mobile Video Usage

The latest data from comScore’s MobiLens service reveals that the number of people viewing video on mobile devices across the EU5 countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy), has increased by 66 per cent in the past year to 12.1m consumers.

The UK and Italy each boast 2.7m mobile video consumers, up 75 per cent from July 2009 in the UK, and 55 per cent in Italy. Spain is demonstrating the fastest growth, with mobile video consumption up 90 per cent in the past year to 1.7m subscribers. Germany is up 72 per cent to 2.4m, and France is up 53 per cent to 2.6m.

On-demand video and TV programming in particular experienced substantial growth in the past year, up 99 per cent since July 2009 across the EU5, with 5.2m mobile owners across Europe viewing such content. Viewing broadcast TV programming is also on the rise, up 70 per cent to 3.5m subscribers.

“The era of ‘video-on-the-go’ has finally arrived,” says comScore European VP mobile, Jeremy Copp.  “We’ve seen major developments throughout the mobile space – in networks, in devices and in software and applications – and now we’re seeing the result: a rapidly growing audience of consumers accessing video on their mobiles, be it broadcast, on-demand or sideloaded.”

Across the EU5 countries, two out of every three people who viewed mobile TV or video were smartphone owners. The UK leads the way, where 80.2 per cent were smartphone owners, followed by Spain (71.7 per cent) and France (67.7 per cent).
“Smartphone owners are clearly driving the mobile video trend, an indication that more growth is on the horizon as an increasing number of smartphones hit the market,” adds Copp. “We’ve also seen that recent releases such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab are designed to offer an incredible video experience, and when coupled with services such as the BBC iPlayer for mobile, make this an extremely interesting sector to watch.”