A dramatic increase in mobile device usage for viewing online video has led to a globally-predicted increase in viewing time of 35% for this year alone.

According to Zenith, media buying agency offering insights and intelligence into digital trending, increases in the streaming time of mobile users will continue over the next two years, rising by a further 25% during 2018, and experiencing a predicted rise of almost 30% in 2019.

In real time terms, during this year, increases will result in an average viewing time of 47.4 minutes, attributed mostly to mobile, which is expected to rise to 2.8 minutes per day. Last year, viewing time measured an average of 39.6 minutes across both mobile and non-mobile technology.

Why is the use of mobile devices for video streaming growing so quickly?

The mobile technology market is growing rapidly, a trend that has been gathering speed for the past couple of years. As mobile manufacturers and technology developers work to increase screen sizes, and provide faster speeds, viewing has become easier and more flexible as a result.

It is thought that by 2019, video streaming via mobile will make up 72% of all online video views.

In comparison, non-mobile devices - including laptops, desktop PCs and connected television – will increase according to the predictions, by only 2% this year, then is expected to fall over the subsequent two years by 1% and 2% respectively. 

Across the board in the US, video streaming and viewing is expected to increase significantly, and in turn, so will advertising revenues. Currently ahead in terms of ad revenue is non-mobile, but not by much ($15.2 billion vs $12 billion for mobile), video streaming ads are expected to follow the trend and experience greater placement in the mobile market as screen capacity and streaming speeds continue to improve.