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Adobe Report Predicts Mobile Video Overtaking Desktop by Q4 2016

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The share of mobile online video viewing is growing, and soon it will overtake desktop viewing. That's one conclusion in "U.S. Digital Video 2014 Inaugural Report," a study just released by Adobe. As with Adobe's previous digital video reports, it focuses on mobile use and TV Everywhere authentication.

For mobile viewing, Adobe find that 26 percent of online video views were on a mobile device in 2014, a figure that shows a 63 percent year-over-year growth rate. If that rate continues, mobile viewing will overtake desktop viewing at the end of 2016.

That's only looking at video starts, however. Viewers watch far longer videos on desktops than on mobile devices. In Q4 2014, for example, viewers spent an average of 5 hours and 49 minutes watching media and entertainment video on desktops; that's 16 times longer than they spent watching the same content on smartphones.

In the TV Everywhere area (Adobe no longer refers to TVE as "online TV"), Adobe found that usage dipped slightly in Q4 2014, going to 12.5 percent from 12.7 percent in Q3. Adobe defines an active user as any pay TV subscriber who has authenticated service at least once in the quarter. The reports suggests that the lack of a major sporting event in Q4 was responsible for the decline. Adobe predicts this number will grow to 18 percent by the end of 2015.

Download the full report for free (no registration required). 

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