Commentary
Binge Watching Goes Mobile -- And Appy
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 6, 2017
What do you want first, app developers? The good news, or the bad?
The good news is that consumers can’t get enough video on their phones, and, as such, there's room for more apps.
Indeed, among iPhone video streaming users (i.e., those who have at least one of the top video streaming apps installed), the share who had four or more of the top video streaming apps installed on their iPhones has increased to more than 30% over the past year.
That’s according to a report from App Annie, which finds that the popularity of video streaming, along with increasing choices, is driving the installation of multiple apps.
The bad news? In a word: competition.
Yes, the biggest names in the entertainment industry and app economy from Disney to Netflix to Apple to Facebook are having to expand their footprints in a variety of ways, ranging from investment in original content to starting new video streaming services.
Over the past year, their app offerings drove significant growth of worldwide consumer spend for the entertainment category. That translated to 85% for iOS, and 70% for Google Play.
No longer limited to living rooms, binge watching of TV shows and movies has become a public pastime.
In fact, as Netflix recently found, 67% of viewers around the world now watch movies and TV shows on mobile devices outside their homes.
All that public viewing is changing consumer behaviors and opinions in other ways. For example, nearly half (45%) of those watching on the go have caught a “backseat binger” snooping on their screen, but only 18% of those bingers report feeling embarrassed about what they’re watching, while 77% refuse to turn off their show or movie.
More broadly, when asked to rank travel or commuting “essentials,” public bingers now list “access to movies and TV shows” higher (25%) than food and beverages (23%).
Stateside, 57% of smartphone owners now access video content via apps, according to recent findings from the NPD Group.
Still the top app for video, YouTube is used by about 45% of smartphones owners on a monthly basis.
Coming in a distant second, Netflix is now accessed by about 18% of smartphone users on a monthly basis.
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
All very interesting, however the fact is that while people will say that they watch long form videos like movies or one-hour dramas on their smartphones this is not a frequency barometer but a reach estimate. the two are not the same. For example, just because Netflix reports that 67% of "viewers" watch "movies and "TV shows" on their smartphones this does not mean that 67% of their smartphone video usage is to movies and TV shows. The actual percentage, as a guess, is probably 10-15%, but maybe, one day, Nielsen will do a volumetric analysis and give us a more precise meterized finding in this. It's really a stretch to say that "consumers can't get enough video on their phones". It's just one more way to access video content and a relatively minor one at that for most smartphone owners---that's what the data shows.