Owing to the increased penetration of smartphones in our lives which has uplifted the growth of on-demand viewing, by 2020, over 50 per cent of all TV and video viewing will take place on a mobile screen (tablets, smartphones and laptops), an increase of 85 per cent since 2010, a new report has said.
According to Ericsson’s annual ConsumerLab TV and Media report, the smartphones alone accounts for an increase of nearly 160 per cent since 2010. Additionally, VR will be on the road to becoming mainstream, with one in three consumers becoming VR users by 2020.
Time spent watching TV and video content has reached an all-time high of 30 hours a week, including active viewing of scheduled linear TV, live and on-demand internet services, downloaded and recorded content, as well as DVD and Blu-ray. However, close to 60 per cent of viewers now prefer on-demand viewing over scheduled linear TV viewing, an increase of around 50 per cent since 2010.
The average number of used on-demand services has increased from 1.6 in 2012 to 3.8 services in 2017 per person; two in five consumers already pay for on-demand TV and video services today and nearly a third (32 per cent) say they will increase their on-demand spending in the next 6-12 months. Portability is also becoming increasingly important factor, with more than a third of consumers wanting access to content when abroad, the report said.
Approximately 70 per cent of consumers now watch videos on a smartphone – representing double the amount from 2012 -- making up a fifth of total TV and video viewing.
Sixteen to nineteen year olds watch the most content each week (33 hours), an increase of almost 10 hours a week since 2010. However, more than half of this demographic spend their time watching content on-demand, with more than 60 per cent of their TV and video viewing hours spent on a mobile device screen.
The findings also show that while consumers have more access to TV and video services than ever before, the average time spent on searching for content has increased to almost one hour per day, an increase of 13 per cent since last year. In fact, one in eight consumers believe that they will get lost in the vast amount of available content in the future.
With the user experience becoming ever more fragmented, six in 10 consumers now rank content discovery as “very important” when subscribing to a new service, while 70 per cent want ‘universal search for all TV and video’.
The social and immersive quality of VR technology is helping to add a new and valuable dimension to the viewing experience. With a third of consumers projected to be VR users by 2020, the technology is expected to play an essential role in the future of TV and video.
However, if consumer interest in VR is to increase, several things will need to change. Close to 55 per cent of consumers planning to get VR devices would prefer it if the headsets were cheaper, and almost half think there should be more immersive content available. A third would be more interested in VR if they could get a VR bundle from their TV and video provider.
Consumers also value high quality viewing experiences as well as immersive experiences. Close to a quarter of the surveyed consumers say they already have access to a 4K UHD TV screen and another third plan to get one.
The study collected quantitative from 13 countries and approximately 20,000 online interviews were held with people aged 16–69 in India, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Britain and the US.
