Video Quality Bigger Issue as OTT Usage Grows

OTT video is continuing to grow steadily, CDN vendor Limelight Networks reported in its semi-annual The State of Online Video study today. The report is based on a May 2016 survey of 1,086 consumers in the US, the UK and Canada.

Key findings include:

• Consumers are watching more OTT video, with the number of respondents viewing 1-2 hours of video per week declining (28.27% in June 2016 compared with 33.53% in December 2015), while those viewing 10+ hours increased from 13.97% in December 2015 to 18.32% in June 2016.

• QoE is becoming more important. Buffering delays are the primary cause of frustration but video quality ranks second and is growing.

• The number of OTT subscriptions is growing. The number of respondents subscribing to five services or more grew from 1.6% in December 2015 to 2.2% in June 2016. More users were also subscribing to two, three and four services.

• Price is still the most important cord-cutting driver but the percentage of respondents selecting this option has dropped in the past six months. Interest in à la carte video services is also strong, and rising.

• The number of people who would "never" cut the cord has actually increased from 10% in December 2015 to 15% in June 2016, a fairly substantial increase.

• Millennials --as you would expect-- are more likely to be at the higher end of OTT consumption and hold more aggressive cord-cutting opinions than the general population.

• In contrast with most studies we have seen recently, this one found that PCs still rule OTT video viewing, though millennials are increasingly choosing the smartphone and it's also gaining ground with the general population. This is a finding worth exploring further, and we'll do that in a subsequent post.

— Aditya Kishore, Practice Leader, Video Transformation, Telco Transformation