There’s one thing that’s clear with today’s audience on the Internet — they sure enjoy watching videos.
A report from Adobe indicates that more users are watching videos than ever before, with an estimated 38.2 billion free videos viewed online during the second quarter of 2014. That’s a whopping 43 percent leap forward from the same quarter in 2013. In addition to that, the company reports that 60 percent of those videos were viewed via smartphones, rather than conventional computers.
Advertisers have been paying attention to these trends, though. Adobe reports that they have spent 25.8 percent more funds than the previous year, with an average of two video ads per free video shown, such as on YouTube. Unique visitors have also risen, increasing by 146 percent in the one-year period, according to VentureBeat.
Many would think that free videos would be the bounty of this survey, but, in fact, paid viewership, via “authenticated viewing,” also saw an increase, with a huge 388 percent leap over 2013, as well as an 85 percent increase in the number of people who actually watch the programming.
Meanwhile, Adobe also noticed another trend. While smartphones and tablets are quite popular with viewing, set-top boxes and game consoles have seen an increase over using a desktop computer, although specific percentages weren’t reported in this particular field.
With the report, Adobe gathered information from sites utilizing both Adobe Analytics and Adobe Primetime. That leaves many numbers unreported, so the audience could actually be bigger than what the company reported here. Specific sites like YouTube and Netflix weren’t mentioned, but they seem to weigh in on the overall factor of the survey. An Adobe spokesperson explained that “the report encompasses date from over 1,300 media and entertainment properties, including virtually all major ones in the U.S.,” stopping just short of confirming sites.
More specifics about the survey can be found here.