Why There’s  a Tremendous Increase In The Consumption Of Digital Content

– Govind Bansal, Co- Founder, Aqua

The multimedia consumption capabilities of this generation have increased manifold. This has resulted in a tremendous increase in the consumption of digital content in the form of apps, videos, and websites on the mobile. Mobile usage as a whole account for 60% of the time spent in consuming new age media content. It’s interesting to find that today mobile apps make up about 47% of internet traffic and 8% of digital consumption traffic originate from mobile browsers. It is projected that the number of smartphone users will grow from 150% to 250 million by 2020. Growth in the usage of mobile phones is primarily driven by social media, surfing and app downloads.

Various Media and their Consumption Trends on Mobile Apps & Gaming

There are about 1.6 Million apps in Google Play Store while Appstore has 1.5 million apps. People spend about 42% of their app time on the smart phones on their most frequently used apps. It is estimated that 7 out of every 8 minutes of media consumption are on mobile devices. On an average, every smartphone user downloads 3 apps every month.

In India there is a huge penetration of those playing downloaded games on mobile and it drives the most revenue on both Google Play and App Store, in comparison to other categories of apps. Nearly 52% of the overall population downloads games on mobiles. Moreover, people spend 43% of their time on playing games on their smartphones. In 2014, games accounted for an enormous 85 of the 700 highest grossing apps on the App Store and Google Play. Due to the a rise in the sales of smartphones and tablets all across the world, the global market for mobile gaming is expected to reach US$ 52.6 billion by 2020, which will eventually change media consumption habits on cell phones, and the subsequent growth in smartphone gaming users worldwide.

Videos

Mobiles have transformed digital video watching to a surprising extent. YouTube alone has billions of views and out of these, 50% views are consumed from a mobile device. The number of hours people spend watching videos on mobile is up 100% and consequently YouTube’s mobile revenue is up 2x year on year. Netflix widely went with an iPad app first, and not a smartphone app. Today, a reported 23% of all Netflix subscribers say they have watched on smartphones, and 15% have done so on iPads. Amazon has about 16.7 million Prime subscribers that get unlimited video streaming on Kindle devices and via Amazon’s mobile apps. The pay and broadcast TV industries, music labels, Hollywood studios, big tech companies, and major advertisers all have to keep a close eye on this trend.

Social Networking

Facebook is the most used app, in both audience size and share of time spent among each demographic segment. There are almost 1.39 billion monthly active users while 894 million users access Facebook daily on mobile. Social Networking, Games and Radio contribute to nearly half the total time spent on apps, indicating mobile usage is heavily centered around entertainment and communication. In a month, approx 250 million active mobile users contributed 86% of Twitter revenue. 90% of the videos being shared on Twitter are being viewed on a mobile device. 75% of Pinterest usage takes place on mobile devices. Instagram has over 300 million active users sharing over 30 billion photos.

Email

According to a Gartner study, 45% of email opening occurred on a mobile, 36% on the desktop and 19% in a webmail client. Moreover, 74% of smartphone owners use their devices to check emails, and Gmail Apps alone have more than 100 million downloads.

Govind Bansal Co- Founder, Aqua

“60% time being spent in consuming new age digital media content through mobile apps, make up about 47% of internet traffic and 8% of digital consumption traffic originate from mobile browsers. ”

What lead to these revolutionary changes?

Extremely advanced technology, robust hardware accompanied by the very low price of smart phones has resulted in tremendous popularity of mobile devices. In late 2014, the average price of Android mobile phones in the global market dropped to nearly $255. Mobile phones with multi-core CPU, 3G connectivity and GPS can be bought in India at a pocket-friendly price, even without Telco subsidization. Moreover, the launch of iPhones and iPad models nearly twice per year pushed the prices of second hand and older models to affordable levels as well. Therefore, app developers now need to create apps that are not only more feature rich, perform better, and offer a better user experience compared to just a few years ago.

Internet Connectivity

The second pioneering change is that over 100 million people access internet over mobile phones, which is 52 percent of the total internet access as of January 2016, making India world’s largest digital online user country. The entrance of a large number of private internet service providers in the Indian broadband market has allowed people to enjoy low cost internet connectivity on their handsets, either through taking advantage of buckets of data services on demand, by using low-cost monthly unlimited usage plans, or simply connecting to free Wi-Fi hotspots that have now become mainstream in public spaces.

Cloud Infrastructure

The third and most vital of these changes is the commoditization of the cloud, which is gaining stream in India. Also, it is expected that the number of cloud computing subscribers in India is expected to grow rapidly in the next five years. Cloud computing relates to services that are available through an Internet connection and usually on a subscription basis.

Where Will This Revolution Lead To?

• Advertisers will now be focused more on mobile rather than desktops or any other electronic medium
• Video streams, video calls, doodles, files, online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, and movies will continue to enjoy top position
• The app as a collection facility for personal data because of which we see more of customized ads and higher conversion than ever
• Media web services will Increase as we see the number of news and media content downloaded through the internet;

Conclusion

App developers will need to incorporate new technologies to create better applications that will fulfill the demands of a tech-savvy generation.