Vuclip Talks Global Mobile Video Trends-Surprising Results Follow

When it came to global mobile video for 2013, the figures went well beyond what the fox said, where Deadpool was spotted dancing, or just what it took to be a gentleman in Psy's line of thought. Indeed, there was a lot of noteworthy information when it came to getting a better handle on global mobile video, and though geography made some of it differ, some of it was surprisingly constant regardless of location, and a recent Vuclip study had a handle on it.

Vuclip noted some fairly simple trends at the outset. One, longer form content was still near the top of the list, much as Vuclip noted in the results of the third quarter study on the field, with 65 percent of users preferring movies or complete television episodes to music videos or short clips. Also, Vuclip further noted that its own operations were doing well on that front, as it was reaching 100 million unique mobile users a month worldwide. These were both important trends, showing a gain in mobile video users and what said viewers were watching. But the Vuclip study went well beyond that.

The Vuclip study showed that a majority of users were sharing online videos. 79 percent of users under 18 shared mobile videos, while 53 percent of all users followed suit. 65 percent of male respondents—and 57 percent of female—preferred the longer-form content to shorter options. What's more, the mobile phone is regarded as a status symbol on the world stage, with 56 percent of respondents calling it the first thing people notice before even clothing, and before a car or a watch as well. For the 18-and-under market, meanwhile, that number jumps to 82 percent.  When it comes to making purchases, meanwhile, mobile devices are even more important as 62 percent of respondents turned to the mobile device for information on potential purchases, while just 10 percent turned to a computer.

Search terms, meanwhile, seemed fairly universal, with celebrities figuring in across the board as far as countries go. The United States, India, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were all part of the action, and in the United States, only Barack Obama was present as a non-celebrity in the top five video search terms. The action movie “Dhoom 3” topped the list in India and the UAE, and its actress Katrina Kaif came in second in India, but wasn't in the UAE's top five. The UAE instead favored American actress Cameron Diaz, who came in third in the ratings but wasn't found in any other listing. Both the UAE and India favored Bollywood actor Salman Khan, though, with India putting him at number three and the UAE ranking him second. Indonesia, however, had one American in the top five in Miley Cyrus.

The takeaway from all this, of course, is that mobile video use is gaining ground at a rapid clip, and it seems to be catching on in full-length material over the shorter alternatives worldwide. That's posing something of an issue for those who provide content and provide the bandwidth on which said content must flow, and if this particular trend catches on with users worldwide, we're going to be looking at an explosion of data use. That's going to require infrastructure buildout, and likely with it higher prices for said bandwidth as companies look to recoup costs. The Vuclip study's leaving behind a lot to think about for 2014, and only the arrival of 2015 will tell just how far it all goes.