Brazil showing serious online video growth even as penetration sinks

Look, we know Brazil is rapidly becoming an online powerhouse but a look at its online video stats shows just how much potential the country actually has.

According to internet research company eMarketer, Brazil currently has 42.9-million online video watchers, although the share of internet users watching videos online actually shrank from 83% to 81.4% between 2011 and 2013.

That means that, on average, each Brazilian internet user is watching more online video than they were two years ago. In fact, comScore research quoted by eMarketer confirms that this is the case.

The number of online videos per viewer, it says, grew 18% — from 109 to 128 — and those viewers are also spending almost 50 more minutes streaming videos than they were in 2012.

These numbers, the research house says, puts Brazil ahead of UK, US and worldwide averages in terms of online video growth.

As is to be expected, Google sites dominate the bulk of those views, with VEVO taking second place. That said, their share is shrinking as increasing numbers of people watch their videos on social channels.

Facebook has benefited especially from this turn to social, with the number of videos watched on the big blue social network up over 400%.

It also looks like the people watching those videos are more interested in music than anything else. eMarketer cites a May 2013 study from ad network Hi-Midia and research company M.sense, which shows that music leads online viewing by a long way with humorous videos and movies following behind.

One reason for the rising popularity of movies in the country is due to the increasing number of video on demand subscribers. A May 2013 study from research institute Dataxis, says eMarketer, showed 2.48-million video-on-demand (VOD) subscribers in Brazil this year. The company reckons the market will reach 4.2-million subscribers by the end of 2014, and break 13-million by 2017—an average 50% growth per year. Those numbers put Brazil’s VOD market ahead of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.