14 DAY TRIAL // A FreeWheel study shows that the majority of video consumed on portables happens on Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
The group first looked at wired video viewing, which pretty much makes mobile video viewing inexistent.
But when looking only at consumers viewing video on their mobile devices, they found it’s currently driven by Apple devices.
The iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad make up 80% of all video views, said FreeWheel.
“This majority reflects the number of these devices in market and their early dominance in the smart- device sector,” according to the group.
They note that the iOS user base “has had these types of devices longest and tends to use them as much for media consumption as for communication,” citing reports from comScore in 2010.
FreeWheel believes the figures also reflect “the development priorities of content producers and distributors: they optimized their content first for the Apple platforms, with Android a later priority,” FreeWheel reveals.
iPads currently make up 20% of all wireless video views, as shown in the image above (click to enlarge), even though there are fewer than 20 million iPads in the global market (according to Apple’s own statistics for Q1 2011), and many more iPhones and iPods.
Weighing in on the success of the iPad as a video device, FreeWheel said “These tablets are clearly being used as digital video delivery devices.”
“Just as with all video views, wireless video views can be driven by news: the highest wireless viewing days occurred in March during the Japanese crisis and also spiked on NCAA March Madness live game days,” FreeWheel said.
Undoubtedly, Apple’s iDevices are leading the pack solely because they’re equipped with displays that make it pleasant and relevant to watch video on.
The iPad, for example, although not featuring a Retina display, boasts a high-quality screen that allows viewing from multiple angles without distorting the image.
The iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4G are even better, though they have smaller screens.
Thanks to the properties of their displays, Apple’s iDevices took home 'Display Application of the Year Gold Award' from The Society for Information Display.
So it’s really no surprise why FreeWheel found what it found, is it?
The FreeWheel video monetization report can be found here (PDF).