Smartphones driving massive increase in mobile video plays

Video plays on tablets and smartphones increased by 100% year-on-year in the first quarter, and were up by 24% quarter-on-quarter, and by a huge 367% over the past two years, according to Ooyala’s latest Global Video Index report. 

According to Ooyala, the growth points to 50% of all online video plays being on mobile devices before the end of the year. Smartphones remain the key mobile video device, with four times as many plays as tablets, according to the report. The gap between phone views and tablet viewing has increased – in the fourth quarter of 2013 smarphone plays outpaced tablet plays by only two to one. In the first quarter of this year, 34% of all plays were on smartphones, with only 8% on tablets, something Ooyala attributed in part to the growth of larger mobile phone screen sizes.

The report found that almost 60% of time spent watching videos on tablets is for sessions of 10 minutes or longer, greater than the 43% recorded for connected TVs. The proportion of time spent watching videos of 10 minutes or more on phones was 37%, higher than the 35% for PCs.

Ooyala also found that consumers will view new content as often as 50% of the time when they are offered personalised recommendations.