Mobile Video Usage Hits 6.5 Million Subscribers

Written by Steve Donohue

Friday, October 31. 2008 at 04:20 PM EDT Post a comment

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While the number of Americans checking out videos on their mobile phones is dwarfed by viewing on TV and the Internet, most of them are young men checking out music videos and TV shows -- the segment targeted by most advertisers.

About 6.5 million U.S. mobile phone subscribers watched videos on their phones in August, according to a report from ComScore. Backed by its exclusive deal to distribute Apple's iPhone to its customers, AT&T led mobile video usage, with 4.4 percent of its customers watching programmed or on-demand video on their mobile phones.  

Sprint was the second most popular mobile video carrier, with 4.2 percent of its customers using mobile video in August, followed by T-Mobile and Verizon (2.4 percent each), according to ComScore.

Music videos remain the most popular type of content viewed by mobile phone users, with 639,000 subscribers watching clips from MTV and other mobile video sites during a three-month period ending in August, representing 32 percent of the mobile broadcast video audience.

About 622,000 subscribers watched full TV episodes or movies. Other popular mobile video consumption types: movie trailers (617,000); comedy videos (596,000); weather (581,000); news (563,000); sports news (561,000); cartoons (473,000); and entertainment and celebrity news (458,000).

ComScore says on-demand video is the most popular format for mobile phone customers, tracking 1.3 million monthly viewers from YouTube and other amateur video sites. Mobile video viewers also watched 1.2 million music videos, 1.2 million comedy videos, 1 million movie trailers, and 727,000 full TV episodes or movies in August.

Mobile video usage is definitely on the rise, and advertisers are beginning to experiment with running banner ads and video spots on cellphones. But the total number of mobile phone customers watching videos on their phones each month (6.5 million) is dwarfed by 110 million TV homes and the amount of video consumed each day by Web surfers watching programming on their computers.

And the majority of customers from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and other wireless carriers that are using their phones to do anything other than make phone calls or send text messages are mostly browsing the Web, according to ComScore. About 36 million mobile phone subscribers accessed news and information sites during the three months ending in August.

Social networking is the activity showing the most growth on mobile phones, with 14.9 million subscribers checking out Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites in August.