Television viewing in China is going south in favor of consumers watching videos on other devices.
New research from software pay-TV company Irdeto shows that only 15% of Chinese respondents predominantly watch television content on a traditional TV, with a combined majority of 85% choosing computers, smartphones and tablets as their preferred screens.
Released this week at broadcasting and technology fair CCBN 2014, the Irdeto survey was conducted among 1,000 nationally representative Chinese adults aged 18 and above in early March.
The survey found laptop and desktop computers to be the top screen of choice when it came to viewing video content (42%), and smartphone devices to be the second most preferred screen for viewing video content (29%).
Also, 60% of respondents said they watch videos on-the-go while commuting, or outside of work, school, or home.
This underlines a significant behavioral shift whereby viewers are now typically choosing non-traditional platforms over traditional television.
Other key findings:
- Chinese consumers are still likely to pirate video content. More than 60% of respondents said that they were ‘extremely likely’ (21%) or ‘likely’ (41%) to pirate video content.
- High pricing (28%) and refusal to wait for official release of video (30%) were named as the top two compelling reasons for watching pirated videos.
- When asked what would prevent them from viewing pirated content, most consumers cited issues surrounding security risks such as viruses and spam (32%), followed by poor video quality (25%).
The full survey results can be found here.