Video makes it big on the small screen in Europe

The UK and Italy each boast 2.7 million mobile video consumers, up 75% from July 2009 in the UK market and up 55% in the Italian market. Spain is demonstrating the fastest growth, with mobile video consumption up 90% in the past year to 1.7 million subscribers.

On-demand in high demand

On-demand video/TV programming in particular experienced substantial growth in the past year, up 99% since July 2009, with 5.2 million mobile owners across Europe viewing such content. Viewing broadcast TV programming is also on the rise, up 70% to 3.5 million subscribers.

"The era of 'video-on-the-go' has finally arrived," says comScore European VP Mobile, Jeremy Copp. "We've seen major developments throughout the mobile space - in networks, in devices and in software and applications - and now we're seeing the result: a rapidly growing audience of consumers accessing video on their mobiles, be it broadcast, on-demand or sideloaded."

Smartphones drive mobile video trend

Across the EU5 countries, two out of every three people who viewed mobile TV/video were smartphone owners. In the UK 80.2% were smartphone owners to lead all EU5 countries, followed by Spain (71.7%) and France (67.7%).

"Smartphone owners are clearly driving the mobile video trend, an indication that more growth is on the horizon as an increasing number of smartphones hit the market," Copp continued. "We've also seen that recent releases such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab are designed to offer an incredible video experience, and when coupled with services such as the BBC iPlayer for mobile, make this an extremely interesting sector to watch."

July 2010 European mobile benchmark data

Below are comScore's July 2010 benchmark data, including a review of mobile consumption behaviours and device penetration for 5 EU countries. These benchmark data are published by comScore on a monthly basis to provide the most up-to-date snapshot of the mobile industry. Further information on these benchmark data, and other data included above, can be provided upon request.