A new survey conducted by Redshift Research for online video specialist QuickPlay Media shows that live TV sport promises to drive the growth of mobile video in the UK. 52% of mobile video users in the UK watched at least one Olympic sporting event on either a smartphone or tablet, with most of them saying their mobile viewing had increased after watching a major sporting event on a mobile device. In addition, the number of consumers watching mobile video at work during the Olympics doubled to 18% from 9% in a non-Olympic average week.
Overall, 63% of mobile device owners now watch television or video on a smartphone or tablet, up from 51% last year. Half of these people (50%) prefer watching live programmes, while 40% picked video-on-demand as their chosen format.
The favoured location for watching TV or video clips was at home (37%), followed by ‘in between activities’ (25%) and while commuting (20%).
Wayne Purboo, CEO of QuickPlay Media, said “These survey results are consistent with what we are seeing in our customer base: Live TV is becoming a primary driver of demand for multiscreen services. The 2012 Olympics shattered records for mobile video viewing, and this is driving longer term consumer demand across a plethora of mobile devices. To capitalise on this demand service providers are looking for cost effective solutions that enable them to rapidly scale multiscreen services while maintaining security and quality of the consumer viewing experience. As a result we are seeing more and more companies looking to managed services as a solution to scale at speed.”
[Survey results]