According to the latest data from Comscore, 6.5 million Americans watched videos on their cell phones in August. YouTube-style amateur videos ranked as the most popular type of content, followed closely by music and comedy videos. Comscore also released some data about general mobile media consumption trends, where the survey found that, year-over-year, more users are now using their mobile devices to access social networking services and read news stories, while fewer users are downloading ringtones and games.
Among network operators, AT&T led the pack with 4.4% of its subscribers using mobile video services, followed by Sprint (4.2%) and T-Mobile and Verizon (both 2.4%).
Interestingly, over 20% of all subscribers also watched full-length TV shows and movies on their mobile devices. Typically, the assumption has been that users are only interested in relatively short video clips. However, judging from this data, there is clearly a market for long-form video on mobile devices as well.
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Niche Market – But Popular with Advertisers
It should be noted that the overall market penetration for mobile video is still under 3%. In contrast, almost 15% of mobile subscribers use their phones to access their work or personal email, while just over 26% used them to send photos or videos to their friends. However, Comscore also points out that the mobile video audience is mostly comprised of males between 18 and 34 years old, a market segment that is highly attractive to advertisers and increasingly hard to reach through traditional advertising channels.
