Research: Almost Third Of Screen Time Now In Portrait Mode

May 27, 2015 by Dave Haynes

Analyst Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report was pushed out today, and it is, as always, a fascinating look at what consumers are doing online and the trends both in North America and globally. The report comes from the Silicon Valley investment shop Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

It’s an essential read if you are in the digital signage business, even if the report’s content has only the most tenuous direct ties to signage.

How people are shopping, how people consume media, what people are using, and on and on, are all really important data points for shaping what you do whether you build, sell or buy technology and services.

The most directly relevant slide in the long deck had to do with portrait versus landscape content. The report asserts that US consumers spend 29% of their daily screen on mobile screens, which are almost all portrait.

You could argue that when people watch video, they’re likely rotating their screens to landscape. But the next slide in the deck says online data is showing the completion rate – the percentage of video views that run through to the end of videos served to smartphones – is nine times higher for native portrait videos.

So we have a consumer base that’s now conditioned and happy enough viewing motion video, and lots of other content,  in a format that was previously regarded as unconventional.

The other part of the report that’s kinda funny to a guy in his 50s – who mercifully doesn’t have staff to water and feed (been there, done that) – was the data suggesting 80% of millennials are narcissistic, while just a hair more than a quarter of them consider themselves team players. Meanwhile, many also expect to be mobile and work from home, office or a cafe, at will.

Must be a barrel of monkeys running some offices.

Good report, and a free download.