UK Internet users now account for 5% of all online video usage, making a billion visits a month to video sites.
The data from information services company Experian, although revealing an increase in online video, shows an increase of just one percentage point on 2011.
As far as the UK population as a whole is concerned, the Internet is where it’s at. 323 million hours were spent watching online video content, accounting for 100 million more hours viewing compared to the same period in 2012, an increase of 45 per cent.
The main driver is YouTube, now the third most popular website in the UK after Google UK and Facebook.
Every month, UK Internet users spend 203 million hours watching YouTube content, with an average session time of 20 minutes. Visits via mobile are also on the increase with 1 in 5 visits to YouTube coming from a mobile device via Wi-Fi compared to 1 in 20 in 2011.
James Murray, Digital Insight Manager, Experian Marketing Services, said: “Although the primary source of video is still entertainment, more brands are taking advantage of this medium and using it to drive traffic to their web pages. Our data shows that nine per cent of video downstream traffic is going directly to retail sites. As online video continues to evolve as a marketing channel, it is starting to have a greater impact on online traffic in the retail, travel and finance industries.”
Murray added that brands would benefit from including video as part of their overall proposition.
