The vast majority of Germany’s internet users are also online video viewers, according to research from BurdaForward.
Short videos—up to about 10 minutes in length—were the focus of the study, rather than films or TV content. Nearly 86% of respondents said they watched such videos, a gain of more than 20 percentage points compared with 2015. What’s more, 83% of viewers said they typically watched those videos to the end.
Some three-quarters (77.7%) of viewers said they accessed online videos to gain information—the top reason given. Around half (50.4%) watched because it was fun, and a similar share used online video to pass the time. Almost as many (44.8%) did so to relax.
Perhaps surprisingly, the share of viewers who found online videos by chance while browsing—51.6% this year—was essentially identical to the share who actively looked for them. But nearly 46% of those polled said they clicked on a video link in an article they were reading. Just 8.3% of viewers said they discovered video content via advertising.
In 2015, fewer than 35% of online viewers watched video every day. In 2016, that share had risen to 48.5%, though most didn’t spend more than 20 minutes daily with digital video.
Thanks to rocketing penetration of mobile devices, more consumers in Germany now use a smartphone to watch videos than a desktop, according to the report.
All these figures suggest that online video has definitely entered the mainstream in Germany. Another indication is that half (49.2%) of those polled by BurdaForward said they always go to the same websites or sources to view online videos—in much the same way that regular digital shoppers head often straight to their favorite ecommerce retailers, rather than a search engine or price comparison site.