The 3 Times Increase in Use of Tablets and Mobile Devices for Video Streaming

Forbes magazine has shared in one of their articles that mobile and tablet video usage continues to grow exponentially. This is based on the quarterly global video index report from Ooyala for the last quarter of 2013. Ooyala is a cross-device analytics company that also serves streaming video content to more than 200 million users. This proves that more and more people are using portable devices most of the time, instead of desktops and laptops. Compared to the last quarter of 2011, the rate for video sharing through mobile and tablets has increased by 18 percent. The projections show that by the year 2016, this share rate can go up to 50% for all video usage. This is equivalent to half of the internet population.

Ooyala Vice President Jonathan Wilner expressed his thoughts on the hike of video viewing and sharing through mobile and tablet devices. He mentioned that the reason for the growth is the increase in the production and availability of quality content, as well as the enhancement of mobile, tablet and wireless technology. These two advancements enable people to  have an enhanced video experience even if they are on the move and away from their homes. He also thinks that the new mass-produced tablets from China that are sold at a more affordable price, may have something to do with the higher numbers. These tablets were also built to function efficiently as a video player more than as a browser. Because of this, people now have more reasons to watch video content using their portable devices.

Even Netflix can attest to this growth in video streaming from their database of over 30 million subscribers.From 5 percent in 2012, the percentage of video streaming on tablets has gone up to 15 percent in 2013. For mobile devices, the  rate of video share has also gone up from 11 to 23 percent. Hulu, another video streaming platform, noticed that their subscribers use tablet sharing at 10 percent in 2012 and increased to 17% in 2014. Hulu currently has over 6 million subscribers.

Desktop or PC is still currently the dominant medium for playing videos, but we can never tell what the future holds. Hulu studies gained insights that PC video sharing has declined from 61 percent in 2012 to 43 percent in 2013.