We are increasingly a nation of on-the-go video watchers according to comScore’s 2015 Canada Digital Future in Focus report.
The average Canadian spent a total of 1,476 minutes watching online video in the fourth quarter – compared with 1,170 minutes for U.S. consumers – according to the measurement organization’s newest report.
Canadians watched approximately 14 billion videos in December alone, a 36% increase from January. Approximately 8.6 million Canadians indicated they have watched video on a mobile device in the past month – up from just over 7 million people in the corresponding year-earlier period.
The report said large audiences in varied content categories, including TV, general news, entertainment/music and games, offer multiple “context-rich advertising opportunities” with engaged users.
Mobile consumption is a key factor in online video’s growth, with the number of Canadians who say they have watched a digital video on mobile almost every day in the past month jumping 76%, to just under 1.9 million. Approximately 2.8 million people indicated they watch mobile video at least once per week.
Approximately 3.3 million Canadians indicated they have watched live or on-demand TV on a mobile device in the past month, representing a 33% year-over-year increase, while 3.3 million people said they have watched paid TV or video, a 41% increase.
The total number of Canadian mobile subscribers jumped 5% to 24.3 million last year, with smartphone penetration increasing to 81% of the mobile subscriber base from 75% the previous year. Smartphone ownership skews towards younger and higher-income Canadians.
Social networking is also a key activity for mobile subscribers, with 12.1 million people saying they have engaged in the activity in the past month, a 16% year-over-year increase. Approximately 7.1 million Canadians said they engage in social networking via mobile device almost every day, a 19% increase over the past year.
While smartphone ownership in Canada is more than twice that of tablet ownership – 19.7 million versus 9.3 million – tablet ownership grew 56% between June 2013 and December 2014.
App-based activity eclipses browser activity on both smartphones and tablets, accounting for 88% and 84% of time spent respectively.
But while mobile continues to grow exponentially, desktop activity still accounts for a large part of our total digital activity. Canada ranked first globally in average monthly desktop usage at 36.7 monthly hours per visitor, drastically eclipsing the global average of 22.8 hours. Canada also ranks third in average monthly page views per person at 3,238.
The report said so-called “key content categories” still reach more than 80% of desktop users, demonstrating continued relevance for a multitude of tasks and content consumption.
