Digital 2023 Deep-Dive: Trends in online video preferences
Perhaps the biggest story in our Digital 2023 Global Overview Report is the world’s shift towards more “considered” and “purposeful” use of the internet.
This change in online behaviours has impacted almost every aspect of digital activity, and online video is no exception.
Let’s explore the data.
Watching videos is still one of our top online activities
GWI’s data reveals that the overall share of working-age internet users who watch online videos each week has actually increased over the past year, from 91.9 percent in last year’s report, to 92.8 percent today.
However, the share of users who say that they watch each specific kind of online video (e.g. music videos, live streams) has actually declined during the same period.
The maths of that may seem a bit strange, but what this tells us is that people are being more selective and discerning about which kinds of video they choose to watch.
But it’s important to stress that “purposeful” doesn’t necessarily mean people are only watching “serious” content.
Indeed – somewhat disappointingly – the biggest declines in this dataset are evident in the share of internet users who watch educational videos (-9.1 percent) and how-to or tutorial videos (-8.3 percent).
More reassuringly, 43.4 percent of the world’s working age internet users still say that they rely on online video as a source of learning.
However, GWI’s data suggests that the “bump” in online education that we saw during pandemic lockdowns hasn’t translated into an enduring habit, at least amongst adult audiences in the world’s larger economies.
Having said that, GSMA Intelligence’s recent State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report indicates that broader use of the internet for education may still be increasing, especially across lower- and middle-income countries:
“The proportion of users using mobile internet for education purposes at least once a week increased from 27 percent to 38 percent between 2019 and 2021.”
And furthermore, data published by TikTok suggests that videos tagged with #LearnOnTikTok have now attracted roughly half a trillion views, ranking it 23rd amongst the short-video platform’s most popular hashtags of all time.
Somewhat surprisingly, the number of people watching sports clips and highlights also declined in the year to Q3 2022 (-6.3 percent), but this trend may reverse in the next wave of research following global excitement around the recent FIFA World Cup.
It’s also interesting to note that people appear to be increasingly willing to pay for online video content offered by platforms like Netflix and YouTube Premium, suggesting that they’re keen to improve the “quality” of their viewing time.
The latest data published in Statista’s Digital Market Outlook shows that worldwide spend on video-on-demand (VOD) services increased by 7.6 percent over the past year, with global spend amounting to almost USD $95 billion for 2022 as a whole.
VOD was the fastest-growing segment in Statista’s Digital Media outlook last year, although it still trails video games by some way in terms of absolute spend.
However, GWI’s research indicates that the majority of streaming viewers rely on free content.
Indeed, that latest data shows that fewer than 1 in 3 internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 currently pays for a movie or TV streaming subscription each month.
Furthermore, there’s evidence to suggest that some people who currently pay for streaming services may stop doing so in the future.
As GWI’s team noted in their analysis of key media trends for 2023,
“Although the number of US consumers paying for a streaming service has increased by 11 percent since the pandemic began, 41 percent of Americans believe film or TV subscriptions are becoming too expensive.”
As a result, it’ll be interesting to see whether the launch of ad-supported subscriptions has any meaningful impact on the number of people who pay for a streaming subscription, or on streaming’s share of overall TV time.
Explore more of the world’s evolving online behaviours in our complete Digital 2023 report.
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