THIS DOCUMENT GATHERS DATA AND STATISTICS ABOUT VIDEO STREAMING AND ONLINE CONTENT TRENDS,

COLLECTED THROUGH SEVERAL ARTICLES RELEASED BY

NIELSEN, CISCO, FREEWHEEL, ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX AND YUME/DECIPHER.

VIDEO STREAMING AND COMMUNICATIONS APPS ACCOUNT FOR HALF OF TABLET DATA CONSUMPTION
According to that analysis, video streaming and communications applications such as YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix accounted for exactly half of data consumption on tablets, and 45% on smartphones. Notably, per a January report from Arieso, the heaviest data users are more apt to be smartphone users than tablet users. However, the Cisco report indicates that each tablet generated 2.4 times more monthly traffic than the average smartphone. Other Findings: The number of mobile-connected devices will surpass the worlds population this year. According to Cisco, global mobile data traffic increased 70% last year. Without accounting for offload onto a fixed network through Wi-Fi or femtocell, growth would have been 96%. Mobile video topped 50% share of traffic during 2012 for the first time, ending the year at 51% share. That is expected to increase to two-thirds share in 2017. Despite accounting for just 0.9% of mobile connections, 4G connections accounted for 14% of mobile data traffic in 2012. The top 1% of mobile data subscribers accounted for 16% of total traffic, down from 52% at the start of 2010. (The Arieso report, which analyzed a single European market, found the hungriest 1% to account for 40% of downlink volume.) The average amount of monthly traffic per smartphone grew by 81% in 2012. Android consumption topped iPhone consumption in 2012 in the US and Western Europe. Tablets will top 10% of global mobile data traffic in 2015.

ONLINE VIDEOS INCREASINGLY BEING WATCHED ON DEVICES OTHER THAN COMPUTERS

New data from FreeWheel [download page] shows that professionally-produced online video viewing is also migrating from computers to devices such as smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. In Q4 2012, non-PC/Mac devices accounted for 12% of video views, per FreeWheels report, triple their share from Q1, and 6 times their share from a year earlier. 12% is still a fairly nominal figure, of course, but the rapid growth rate (30% greater volume of views quarter-over-quarter) portends higher numbers in the near future. Thats likely to consume a lot of mobile bandwidth: according to Cisco, half of worldwide tablet data consumption (and 45% of smartphone data consumption) could be attributed to video streaming and communication applications (such as YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix) during Q4 2012.

TRENDS BEHIND NIELSENS DECISION TO BROADEN ITS TV RATINGS SYSTEM

Nielsen has broaden the traditional definition of TV household by creating a new profile called Zero-TV group, which is small group of video enthusiasts that is tuning out traditional TV and opting to get the information they need and want from nontraditional TV devices and services.and the trend is growing. This Zero-TV group only account for less than 5 percent of U.S. households. Still, there are more than five million Zero-TV households in 2013, up from just over 2 million in 2007. These households dont fit Nielsens traditional definition of a TV household, but they still view video content.

ACROSS 8 MAJOR MARKETS, TABLET SHARE OF WEB TRAFFIC EXCEEDS SMARTPHONE SHARE
An analysis of more than 100 billion visits to more than 1,000 websites across 8 major markets worldwide by Adobe Digital Index reveals that for the first time, tablet traffic exceeded smartphone traffic in February 2013 (8% and 7% of page views, respectively). The Adobe data reveals that across the 8 markets, retail websites get the highest share of tablet traffic, easily exceeding smartphone traffic, although Monetate data (predominantly covering the US) shows that tablets have not quite caught up to smartphones in e-commerce site visits. Adobes data also indicates that tablets account for more traffic than smartphones to auto sites, while smartphones edge them in traffic to other categories such as travel, media, CPG, and financial services.

GAME CONSOLES INCREASINGLY BEING USED TO STREAM VIDEO

In January, Nielsen reported that 56% of American TV homes owned a video game console as of September 2012. Americans still use their game consoles mostly for playing video games, but video ondemand (VOD) and streaming services are capturing more of console usage time, per new data from Nielsen. VOD and streaming services accounted for 22% of overall time spent with 7th-generation consoles (such as PlayStation3, Wii, Xbox 360) last year, up from 19% in 2011 and 13% in 2010. In fact Wii users devoted 32% of their time to VOD and streaming. Advertisement PS 3 users, though, are gravitating most rapidly to these services, spending 24% of their console time last year on them, up from 15% in 2011. , PS3 users devoted 22% of their console time to watching DVDs/blu-rays (18%) and downloaded movies and TV shows (4%), while also spending 8% of their time on other activities such as listening to music and using the internet.

ARE YOUNG PEOPLE WATCHING LESS TV? (UPDATED)

The latest quarter of data (Q4) indicates that younger adults are moving away from traditional TV viewing at a faster rate than older viewers, whose consumption patterns havent significantly changed. Thats not a terribly surprising result, given that younger adults have adopted internet and mobile video at a greater rate than their more mature counterparts.

CONTENT CONSUMPTION MAY RELY MORE ON ENVIRONMENT AND CONTEXT THAN DEVICE
A new study from YuMe and Decipher examines consumer interaction with media content across laptops, tablets, and smartphones, concluding that the study participants (from the UK) are largely device agnostic, meaning that environment and context matter more for media consumption than screen size. The study finds, for example, that regardless of device, consumption of videos takes place most often in the home, and that users are both more relaxed and explorative while at home. Advertisement Consumption of written content such as articles, which account for about half of media consumption on each device, also mostly takes place in the home, though smartphones are more likely to be used on the go to access this media type. The study also reveals that generally speaking, desire for different content genres is unaffected by device type. The researchers also examine ad engagement, comparing video advertising (pre-rolls) to banner advertising. In each brand metric and across each device, pre-rolls proved far more effective than banner ads. Overall, pre-rolls generated 3.5 times higher recall (78% vs. 23%), 2.5 times higher favorability (40% vs. 16%), 2.2 times higher brand association (44% vs. 20%), and 2.1 times higher purchase intent (23% vs. 11%). (For what its worth, Sharethrough recently found native video ads to perform better than pre-rolls in brand lift.)