Consumers are spending 29 percent more time watching videos on their mobile devices, according to a study conducted by Yahoo.

In the recent ?How to connect with mobile consumers? study, Yahoo looked at how users are spending time with video content on their mobile devices. In addition to video consumption, the study looked at mobile Web traffic and how it has grown in the past year.

?Consumers are spending more time on their mobile phones compared to a year ago," said Ashmeed Ali, senior manager for business to business market research at Yahoo, Sunnyvale, CA.

"Specifically, there?s been am increase in time spent on the mobile web and an increase in time spent watching video on a mobile device," he said.

Grow on mobile
According to the Yahoo study, 54 percent of consumers surveyed are spending more time on the mobile Web than they were one year ago.

Interestingly, the majority of time spent happens before 1 p.m., which contradicts reports that mobile is a channel that takes place mainly in the evening.

One-third of the time consumers spent on mobile Web was at home.

Sports, weather and news remain the most popular content that consumers interact with on their devices.

Twenty percent of consumers are accessing video content daily on their devices.

Fifty percent of users surveyed said that they accessed music content on their mobile device, and 49 percent of consumers say they watch humor-related video.

"Music is a natural extension of this handheld device," Mr. Ali said.

"Consumers are used to listening to music on their mobile devices, and there are many popular music video apps available for consumers," he said.

Gaming video content makes up 42 percent of video content that consumers are watching.

Consumers are watching more sports, weather and news video than sports

Thirty-four percent of consumers watch movie clips and trailers.

Additionally, only 33 percent of consumers are watching full-length television shows and movies or sports coverage.

Thirty-two percent of consumers watch celebrity, beauty or fashion video content on their devices.

Political coverage is the least viewed video category with only 14 percent of consumers watching it.

"More importantly, consumers like watching more professional content on their mobile devices," Mr. Ali said.

Mirror reflection
The study also found some interesting trends with the mobile Web and how it relates to the desktop Web experience.

Compared to desktop, consumers are using mobile Web as an on-the-go resource to quickly look something up.

When surveyed, 38 percent of mobile consumers said they used the mobile Web to connect with other users.

Sixteen percent of users said they used mobile Web to search, and 15 percent of consumers used it for entertainment.
When users were asked about their desktop habits, the study found similar results with 32 percent of consumers that said they used desktop Web to connect with others.

Ten percent of users surveyed said they used the desktop for searching, and 27 percent of consumers use the desktop for entertainment.

The study also found that the majority of mobile advertisements were looked at between 6 a.m. and noon every day.

Despite the spike in mobile traffic, 60 percent of consumers are still looking for a better user experience and expect more, showing that marketers need to step up their mobile efforts to meet consumers.

"As networks improve and smartphones adoption becomes more mainstream, we predict that mobile video content will become more professional in nature ? specifically the viewing of original short or long-form content," Mr. Ali said.

"Consumers speak of their mobile devices in human terms, so publishers will need to create video content that is personalized and tailored to the individual user," he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York