Today we released our first quarterly JW Trends in Online Video report, which looks at the state of online video across six continents. Data reviewed includes findings for trends across our global network of video publishers and aggregate growth relative to large scale online video services.
The report highlights JW Player’s recent growth and analyzes video streaming and consumption habits across devices, platforms and geographies within its network of connected players. Unlike studies that focus only on the top 10 to 20 video sites in the United States, JW Player’s data is representative of the global “long tail” of video, millions of diverse international publishers around the world comprised of small, medium and large video sites.
Key insights from the data include:
Global Audience Insights
- Digital video content publishers represent a truly global community, with more than 80 percent of JW Player’s publisher streams delivered to viewers outside of the United States.
- More than 75 percent of international viewing across 193 countries is concentrated among audiences in Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, Brazil, Thailand, Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, and Japan.
- Video time watched per person is highest in Europe, averaging 34 minutes per viewer, followed by 32 minutes in North America, 30 minutes in Asia, and 14 minutes in Africa.
- Average time watched for video in JW Player of ~30 minutes per month equates to ~5% of all online video watched in the US (11 hours, according to the Nielsen Total Audience report)
- Outside of the US, Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese audiences watched the most minutes of video while Canadians, Brits, and Germans played the most video streams
- A world map with color intensities showing relative streaming video volume on a global basis was generated from the data set and it is shown below.
How We Watch
- Tablet users watch the most video per month (40 minutes), followed by desktop (30 minutes), and mobile phones (20 minutes); however, the growing trend toward larger phones could quickly increase viewing time on these devices.
- Progressive video file downloads on the web comprise more than 60% of plays (MP4 format) but streaming is growing fast at ~25%. Adaptive streaming consists of significant usage for both Apple HLS and Adobe HDS.
- Google Chrome dominates video delivery on desktop browsers and Apple’s Safari dominates video on tablet browsers, while the two remain head to head for video on mobile devices.
A Viewer in San Francisco in the US is Worth Six from Liverpool, England
- Relative to the United States, U.K. and Canada, video monetization is considerably smaller in Europe and Asia. In the U.S., preliminary data indicates approximately 20 video ads (10 minutes) per hour are watched vs. four video ads (two minutes) per hour watched in Europe.
- Video ads per unit time per continent correlate with market data showing video ad monetization per online user in the U.S. is $14.50 vs. $2.50 (USD equivalent) in Europe, a factor of six difference. In the U.S., broadcast TV runs at 16 minutes of ads per hour watched, much greater than online video. The data highlights the opportunity to monetize video even more in the U.S. and abroad
- Pre-roll video ads are highly popular (85 percent) vs. mid- and post-roll formats (<15 percent) with open standards video advertising (VAST) accounting for 90 percent of all video ads.
We believe that this data, and the future insights we will continue to gather, will enable our global publisher network to increase viewer engagement and better capitalize on monetization.
The report also tracked JW Player’s growth over six months from May through October, during which time monthly video streams tripled, from 4.3 billion to 13.6 billion, monthly ad impressions doubled from 1.4 billion to 3.3 billion, and time watched increased from 16 billion to 28 billion minutes. After introducing autoplay video, Facebook recently reported a 14.5 percent monthly growth rate for video views. JW Player’s monthly stream growth over a comparable period was 21 percent–50 percent higher than Facebook’s. In addition, monthly video streams for JW Player are greater than the top 100 YouTube channels combined.
The data from JW Player’s global network of connected players is processed by a big video data pipeline, sourced from a “video firehose” generating 25,000 video events per second, equivalent to 1.5 million events a minute, 100 million events an hour and 2.5 billion events a day.