TMCnews Featured Article
June 07, 2011
Apple to Dominate Mobile Video?
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
As consumers and business users alike are becoming more mobile, they are also demanding more functionality and rich content delivery from their mobile devices. As a result, there is an increasing demand for mobile video solutions. What happens, however, when a mobile device lacks Flash capabilities?
If you haven’t already guessed, I am talking about Apple (News 
- Alert) and its devices. Mobile devices advertising in the market today are taking aim at this “shortfall” for Apple, but maybe it is not as damaging as might be suggested. In fact, according to this Mobiledia piece, Apple devices can support four out of every five mobile videos.
This support in the mobile video space demonstrates that Apple’s strategy to dominate in streaming has benefitted the company. According to industry reports by FreeWheel, the majority of mobile video consumption is taking place on iPhones, iPads and the iPod Touch.
The iPhone and iPod Touch alone account for roughly 30 percent of all mobile videos viewed. The iPad and Android (News - Alert) devices claim 20 percent each and other devices are accounting for less than one percent of all mobile video downloads. These findings suggest that Apple will only continue to gain momentum in this space. It can also be assumed that Flash may not be necessary to support the anticipated growth in the mobile video space.
In theory, it is possible that the lack of Flash on Apple devices could prevent access to the majority of the videos available on the Web as most are rendered in the Adobe (News - Alert) standard. And, this is providing a great competitive attack for Android and other players as they try to sell against iOS devices.
What is changing in the market, however, is that the majority of mobile video experiences are the result of users accessing video directly from a native app or videos that are embedded in HTML5, YouTube (News - Alert) or other mobile video sites. As Apple continues to gain strength in the mobile video space, this may not play out well for Adobe.
While Apple is comfortably dominating the tablet market and tablets are gaining more ground with consumers, Apple’s way of offering the consumption of mobile video could very well end up completely dominating the market. And, as TV viewers are increasingly embracing the iPad as a vehicle for video-on-demand and streamlining, iPad apps are developed at a rapid pace.
In the bigger picture, mobile video is still a relatively small activity in comparison with the broader media industry. The platform is growing, however, and is likely to begin to gain more than its mere 1 percent, creating a number of opportunities for all players willing to battle for dominance.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca
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