Chinese consumers will spend nearly two hours a day watching videos online in 2020, according to Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts report.
China will lead the world in video consumption with the average person spending 105 minutes a day online, closely followed by Russia (102 minutes) and the UK (101 minutes).
Online video has exploded in China with local players iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video competing heavily for audiences as advertising investment grows sharply.
Globally, consumers will spend more than one hour (67 minutes a day) watching online video this year, up from 56 minutes in 2017. This figure is expected to increase by 9 minutes a day, on average, each year until 2020.
The figures reveal the rapid rise in online video consumption, which includes video sharing sites, subscription and broadcaster-owned platforms, as well as social media sites, led by market leaders such as Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime and Hulu along with iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video.
Online video remains the fastest growing media consumption online and accounts for almost of all of the growth in total internet use. In line with the consumption growth, advertising expenditure is also rising sharply, online video ad spend grew 20% in 2017, to reach $27bn, according to Zenith estimates.
Ad spend growth is forecast to reach 19% in 2018 followed by an average of 17% annual growth each year until 2020 when it will reach $43bn and account for 30% of display ad spend – up from 27% in 2017.
