iPhone, iPad Dominate Mobile Video Viewing Market

Apple’s iOS platform, which includes the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, accounts for some 80 percent of the small but growing mobile video viewing market, according to a study (PDF) by the video monetization company FreeWheel. Based on the company’s research, Google’s Android OS made up nearly all of the remaining 20 percent, and all other mobile platforms accounting for less than one percent of mobile video viewers.

iOS dominates mobile video viewingiOS dominates mobile video viewing

The iPhone and iPod touch each made up 30 percent of the mobile viewing devices, and the iPad accounted for another 20 percent.

“This majority reflects the number of these devices in market and their early dominance in the smart-device sector,” the FreeWheel report said. “It also reflects the development priorities of content producers and distributors: they optimized their content first for the Apple platforms, with Android a later priority.”

Apple’s dominance in the mobile video market doesn’t, however, signal an end to the control Adobe’s Flash has over online content. While video for iOS devices can’t be encoded as Flash because the devices don’t support the format, mobile video makes up only about one percent of the Internet’s video offerings.

Despite the small percentage of mobile video viewers compared to the overall market, the fact that companies are paying attention to on-the-go consumers says a lot about where they see the future of Internet media — and for now Apple is leading the pack.