Strong growth in mobile video viewing on smartphones and tablets over the next decade (2015-2025) will diminish the market share of both legacy TV and PC-based broadband video viewing, according to new market research from TDG (The Diffusion Group). Mobile video will account for over 20 percent of total video viewing among U.S. consumers by the end of the period, according to TDG’s “TV Gets Personal – Trends in Mobile Video Viewing, 2015-2025.”
The future of video viewing lies in personalized apps, according to TDG, as they increasingly replace mass market broadcasting and “TV transforms from a social medium (watching together in a living room on a TV set) to an individual medium (individual viewing on smaller, more personal screens such as tablets or smartphones – mobile video),” TDG elaborates in a press release.
As a result, a shift from legacy TV platforms and PCs to mobile video will occur, TDG says. “The concept of ‘watching television’ is being redefined,” commented TDG Senior Analyst and report author Joel Espelien, “transforming from a social medium characterized by groups of viewers sitting in front of the living room television, to an individual medium defined by solitary viewers watching programs on smaller, more personal devices such as tablets and smartphones.”
Mobile Video Viewing
This fundamental shift in the nature of TV viewing is already well under way. TDG points out that personalized video apps are already generating half of their total video traffic from small personalized devices.
Ironically, “mobile video is primarily about in-home viewing,” Espelien added, “rather than viewing while on the go.” Nearly 80 percent of tablet and half of smartphone video viewing occurs in the home, according to a February 2015 TDG market research report. This, according to Espelien, “is more about the individualization and personalization of TV itself” than it is about mobile viewing.
