Neilsen's mobile video study revealed a lot of information about video on mobile phones. Mobile video users are young, and over a third watch mobile video in bed. They watch video for longer intervals (15 minutes or longer), comedy is tops and satisfaction is high.
In the U.S. today, 10.3 million mobile phone subscribers access video content on their phone each month--an increase of 14% from last year. Through websites such as YouTube, or subscriptions to clips delivered by the carrier, or through "live" broadcasted TV programming, millions of U.S. subscribers today consume video news and entertainment.
The most popular means of mobile video consumption over phones in the U.S. is mobile Web video, with 66% of mobile video users viewing video this way. Still, much of the mobile video audience pays for access to a service: 42% of mobile video users access their video through a mobile video subscription. U.S. subscriptions to mobile video have recently risen to 16.4 million in Q3 2008 from 13.2 million in Q3 2007, a 27% year-over-year growth bolstered by unlimited data packages such as Sprint's "Simply Everything" plan, that allow access to mobile video.
Still, though the mobile video market saw reasonable growth in 2008,
the overall use of mobile video in the U.S., at 5% of all subscribers,
is low compared to other mobile media: Internet, ringtones and games,
for example. U.S. subscribers are not unique in their low penetration
of mobile video. In fact, of the 11 mobile video markets tracked by
Nielsen, penetration of mobile video consumption is highest in the
U.S., followed by France and Italy where 4% of mobile subscribers
access mobile video each month. None of the markets Nielsen tracks have
surpassed the 5% threshold of usage, but some estimates place
penetration in Japan and South Korea--markets where Nielsen doesn't yet
measure mobile video consumption-- at nearer to 50% of the mobile
market.
Though the U.S. audience for mobile video is small today, key
developments could fuel considerable growth in the market in 2009 and
2010--expanding not just the universe of existing mobile video users,
but also the universe of untapped subscribers. First, let's look more
closely at mobile video use, today.
Demographics
The audience today
In the U.S., the profile of mobile video users is broad enough that it
cannot be classified as merely a young, affluent man's medium. While
the audience does skew young, the makeup for mobile video content spans
across the demographic spectrum.
As of Q3 2008, the mobile video audience is more male than female
(60% male, while men make up just 48% of the total mobile population).
Mobile video users are considerably more likely to be younger--65% of
all mobile video users are under the age of 35, compared to just 35% of
all subscribers.
African Americans and Hispanics continue to be disproportionately
represented in the mobile video audience when compared to the total
subscriber base. As of Q3 2008, 14% of the mobile video audience was
African American (non-Hispanic) and 24% of the audience was Hispanic
(compared to just 9 and 13% of all subscribers, respectively).
From an income perspective, the mobile video audience is perhaps
more balanced than expected, considering surcharges and device needs.
As of Q3 2008, mobile video users were just slightly more likely to
have household incomes of $100K, compared to all mobile subscribers
(28% compared to 22%).
Broad and varied use
Perhaps one of the more "expected" uses of mobile video is while
waiting in lines. However, Nielsen data suggest that the occasion for
mobile video consumption is really much broader than this narrow, and
perhaps rarer than imagined, opportunity. Indeed, how many lines does
one wait in during a typical day?
And while mobile video viewers do report that they consume video
while waiting for people or things (59% say they do so), 37% of viewers
say they tune in to their phone while at home, 35% watch from their bed and about one in four users say they occasionally view while they are exercising.
Considering the diversity of place in which mobile video is
consumed, it is less surprising to consider that mobile video viewers
are not necessarily watching for just short intervals. In Q3 2008, 54%
of mobile video viewers reported average mobile video sessions of 15
minutes or longer. As reported in the Nielsen A2/M2 Three Screen
Report, the typical mobile video viewer tunes into their phone for an
average of 3 hours and 37 minutes per month--an increase of 11% since
Q1 2008. This increase is fueled in part by content providers making
full-length episodes of television content available over mobile phones.
Mobile Video Viewers Time Spent Viewing
Keep it light and funny
From a genre perspective, Comedy is the most popular mobile video
content. Forty percent of mobile video viewers in Q3 2008 said they had
watched comedy content, at an average of 10 minutes per session.
Weather, Music and Sports are the next most popular genres of mobile
video content, respectively. The appeal of a broad range of genres in
mobile video is apparent: 17 of the mobile video genres tracked by
Nielsen have attracted audiences of more than one million unique mobile
video users, including even Adult content.
As for specific brands of content consumed over mobile video, many
of the leading television brands today are also the most watched brands
in mobile video. As of Q3 2008, NBC is the most-watched mobile video
brand in the U.S. A total of 4.7 million mobile video users watched
NBC-branded mobile video entertainment in the typical month--46% of the
overall mobile video audience.
After NBC, FOX, MTV, The Weather Channel, Comedy Central, YouTube
and ESPN were the next most popular mobile video brands (reaching
between 28% and 42% of mobile video viewers).
YouTube Important
YouTube's position in that lineup is important , as mobile web-based
video is playing an increasingly important part in the growth of the
mobile video audience. In Q3 2008, about three million U.S. mobile
subscribers accessed YouTube--the leading Web video provider accessed
over the phone--through their phone. YouTube's mobile audience grew
277% between October 2007 and October 2008.
Future interests
Comedy is not just the most popular form of mobile video content today;
it's also what users want to see more of. Comedy is the top-aided
category of interest among current users--though not by far. As of Q3
2008, 11% of mobile video users said they were interested in additional
comedy programming, just ahead of music (10%) and full-length cinema
released movies (9%), each of which may reflect the current youth skew
of mobile video.
Satisfaction is High.
Although usage frequency among mobile video users is relatively low (17 videos per month median), overall satisfaction with the mobile video experience is high among current users.
As of Q3 2008, 71% of mobile video viewers said they were satisfied with the mobile video experience. That number is slightly higher among those who are paying for a subscription video service (77%) and lower among those who access mobile video by other means (67%). Mobile video users ages 18-24 also tend to be more satisfied with their experience than the typical user--76% say they are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with their experience.
Overall, network quality, costs and battery life appear to be the biggest pain points on the mobile video experience. Thankfully, these challenges have foreseeable solutions. From a network standpoint, carriers have been rolling out 3G networks throughout the U.S. that offer data throughputs six times as fast as 2 and 2.5G networks. From a cost perspective, the average price paid for subscription-based mobile video has declined in recent quarters, and consumers are increasingly able to access professional video content through the mobile web, without additional fees on top of their data plan.
Battery life is perhaps the most fundamentally gating factor to mobile media consumption. Immediate solutions involve the creative introduction of devices such as battery-powered cell phone cases that double the life of phones (Incase has introduced such a case for the iPhone), and longer-term solutions to power limitations are being developed quickly. A group at Stanford says they've designed a battery that can extend the life of laptop and phone batteries tenfold.
Only 5% Mobile TV Subscribers
Growing the mobile video pie
Satisfaction among current users is good, but for the overall mobile video market to grow, the whole pie will have to grow. Today, only 5% of U.S. mobile subscribers use mobile video, but as mentioned, there are opportunities for mobile video growth in 2009 and 2010.
Today there is still a large degree of carrier control over the mobile video experience--a level of control that may have to loosen for the overall market to grow. Furthermore, mobile video is still costly and, from some perspectives, lacks the breadth of content (national, local and user generated) that it could provide.
Solving for these factors, three avenues for growth of the overall mobile video audience include:
- the expanded use of mobile Web and mobile Web video;
- the rollout of mobile digital TV (mobile DTV);
- an improved advertising subsidization of subscription-based streaming mobile video services.
The latter is the most unlikely of the three growth drivers, but all are possible, and a combination of some of these three would grow the mobile video audience considerably into 2009 and 2010. A detailed review of these growth drivers can be found in the Tuned into the Phone: Mobile Video Use in the U.S. and Abroad report, see link below.
The time has come
The 1966 Columbus Dispatch article quoted at the beginning of this article was mostly bullish about the significance of Motorola's tiny mobile television. At the end of that article, though, the reporter writes, "Now that the company has the teeniest TV ever built, they're a little at a loss as to what to do with it. It probably won't make a consumer product for years to come."
Has the time come for more ubiquitous use of mobile video? It has, but only if the market can cooperate to move beyond mobile video's plateau and make the medium an affordable and engaging experience for a broader audience of viewers.
Mobile video can work today because 224 million mobile subscribers already carry devices in their pockets that, if not presently capable of mobile video consumption, will be the next time they upgrade their device.
Based on an excerpt of "Tuned into the Phone: Mobile Video Use in the U.S. and Abroad", a new white paper from Nielsen's telecom practice which is available here.