As 2011 unfolds, we continue to witness a growing consumption of mobile videos. The number of U.S. mobile users watching video on their mobile devices was nearly 25 million people by the end of 2010 ( source: Nielsen new mobile video report. And, the newest trends revealed in Cisco’s Global Mobile Data Reportpromises us a bright future.
- Global mobile data nearly tripled for the third year in a row.
Global mobile data traffic in 2010 was 237 petabytes per month, and 49.8 percent of this traffic was video usage.
- Mobile devices are becoming more compatible with video usage.
It is more convenient and engaging to watch videos nowadays. Mobile connection speeds doubled in 2010 and many mobile devices have more powerful processors and larger screens than ever before.
- Usage of smartphones is increasing.
Though smartphones represent only 13 percent of total global handsets in use today, they are responsible for over 78 percent of total global mobile devices traffic. In 2010, the typical smartphone racked up 24 times more mobile data traffic than the typical basic-feature cell phone. Furthermore, the average consumption of traffic more than doubled in the past year (from 35 MB per month in 2009 to 79 MB in 2010).
- Mobile videos are available beyond the power of electrical grids and geographical borders.
There are 48 million people in the world who have mobile phones even though they do not have electricity at home. One of my most astounding discoveries during my travel to Rwanda was that there were more people who owned mobile phones than people with access to electricity.
- The Vimeo iPhone App is now live.
With the newly released Vimeo application, users can now upload, edit, manage and watch more videos than before on the iPhone.
New technological advances in the space also increased opportunities for monetizing of mobile videos. Ad support became stronger. The arrival of HTML5 allows videos to run without the use of plug-ins such as Flash, opening up new opportunities for video advertisers.
As the year progresses, we’ll see a lot of new twists in the changing world of mobile videos. I am looking forward to new developments and will try to keep you up-to-date. And, the great news is that mobile devices are among the many places where your videos can be watched. So, let’s keep on producing great videos and increasing our visibility to the rest of the world.
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