Video Goes Mobile: What Consumers Expect of Mobile Video Services

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to explore what factors will affect the usage of mobile video services. As a secondary purpose, based on the above findings, some implications for providers of mobile video services are discussed. The term mobile video services as used in the thesis denote the downloading, streaming and uploading of user-generated on-demand videos. The study is also limited to Swedish consumers and the Swedish market. By using theories of the Long tail, user-generated content (UGC), adoption of new technologies, mobility and uniqueness and self-expression, hypotheses focusing on factors influencing use of mobile video services are formulated. The study is, furthermore, divided into a pre-study consisting of qualitative interviews, complementing the theories, and a quantitative study conducted with a survey among 250 students. The findings from the quantitative method were analysed with frequency analyses, t-tests, correlation tests and regression tests. The findings indicate that UGC is very popular to watch, but that only a few upload their own material. The findings also indicate that there are many factors that influence consumers’ usage of mobile video services. The most important factors connected to the service offering are the trialability of the service, the functionality of the mobile phones for the service, the ease of use and the reliability of the service. The most important factors connected to value for consumers are the values created by the number of users of the service, the time-efficiency factor achieved through the mobility of the mobile phone and by the community factor. Some important factors that can be communicated by companies are the number of users of the service and the ease of search of video clips through the service. It is also important to increase the consumers’ knowledge level of the service. For the companies on the market, the study indicates that it is important to consider these factors when designing their service offering and marketing activities. The study also indicates that it is important that companies begin to cooperate with other companies on actual “win-win” conditions.