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Bye Bye Smartphone: iPad Invade Video Screens

Bye Bye Smartphone: iPad Invade Video Screens


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And the trend is visible for all ages, with more time than ever spent viewing online video sites like Hulu and YouTube. The 18-34 age group however, is the most active of ages surveyed.

And a somewhat surprising trend shows consumers are dropping the amount of time spent watching multimedia on their phones in favour of tabs, according to PriceWaterhouseCooper research series conducted in the US.

Just 23% of conusmers questioned favoured watching content via iPhone or Android handset.

“This was further validated in qualitative discussions, where consumers confirmed that they spend more time using their Internet-connected devices, especially iPads,” according to the 2011 report.

However, PwC previously forecasts mobile TV video to grow at a 17%  by 2014 although it is a long way off this figure judging by these stats.

Previous research indicated mobile TV accounting for just 1% of the entire TV subscription market.

Tablets are viewed as a  “wholly different mobile viewing experience” compared to smartphones, since a 10.1″ inch tab affords far richer viewing experience with a larger screen, better sound and screen technology, than say a 4 inch handset affords.

In another surprise finding was the gaming console is now more than ever before seen as a way to watch digital content.

“This choice was primarily influenced by which room the console was in when they decided to watch a movie. It was definitely not considered to be their primary platform for viewing movies. “

The 18-34 age group spends more time playing video games (adding online and offline time) than any other age group, previous PwC research also showed, while older adults (35 – 59)  spend the most time watching traditional formats like television with 35-44 ages watching movies/TV shows that have been DVR’d than any of the others.

Renting from BlockBuster, services like Netflix or streaming is now the primary method of viewing video/movie content, primarily because consumers see it as a better value and people are likely to rent their movies than purchase a copy or download a permanent copy.

“The times have changed. Having a physical copy of something that’s almost is gone. People are downloading and you have your file on your computer,” one respondant said.

Other PwC research from its consumer Intelligence series also suggested consumers spend nearly 12 hours per week reading content—both digital and non-digital format.