IP Democracy: Nielsen: Videos Account for Only 1% of iPod Usage

Hollywood Reporter’s Andrew Wallenstein has this item today about a special study conducted by Nielsen Media Research on the consumption habits of iPod owners, the first independent, publicly available account of how iPod owners use their devices.

The surprising findings: Less than 1% of content items played by iPod users on either iTunes or the iPod itself were videos. Among video iPod owners, that percentage grows to only 2.2%. Even when duration of the content is taken into account, the percentage ticks up to only 2% of total time spent for all iPod owners, although it increases to 11% for video iPod owners.

But, to some extent these statistics are misleading in terms of predicting the popularity and future of mobile video downloads through online stores such as iTunes. The vast majority of content offered by iTunes is music, and online music is a very mature market. On the other hand, online video, and mobile video in particular, is in its infancy. (Compare the iTunes sales stats to date: 1.5 billion songs versus only 45 million videos.)

As Nielsen exec Paul Lindstrom says in the article, the real issue is “what is the next wave?” I might also add: what are the comparative revenue-generating differences between the two types of content? While most iTunes music downloads generate $.99/pop, video downloads can range from $1.99 per TV show episode up to $19.99 or more for a full-length motion picture.

In other words, iTunes movies, for example, might represent only a tiny fraction of the iPod owners’ time, but on a per unit basis generates 20 times more in revenue than music does. To the extent that iPod video usage grows, the dollar impact is going to be some geometric multiple of the growth increase.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 20, 2006 7:57 AM to IP Democracy