In its fifth edition, Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts 2019  report, it is forecasted that the average person will spend 100 minutes each day watching online video in 2021, which is up from 84 minutes this year, In other words, that’s the equivalent of watching 25 continuous days of video in 2021.

“The amount of time people spend viewing online video has grown rapidly across the world, at an average rate of 32 percent a year between 2013 and 2018, boosted by improvements in display sizes and quality of mobile devices, faster mobile data connections, and the spread of connected TV sets,” stated the report.

Accordingly, China and Sweden have the keenest online video viewers, who  spend 103 minutes a day watching online video this year. These are the only countries where online video viewing exceeds 100 minutes a day, however,  by 2021, Zenith expects Canada, India, Mexico, the UK and the USA to join the list.

“The consumption of online video is growing rapidly, and the average person will spend half as much time viewing online video as they spend viewing conventional television this year,” said Jonathan Barnard, Head of Forecasting at Zenith said in a statement. Barnard added “This fast-expanding supply of audiences is fuelling rapid growth in demand from advertisers, making online video the fastest-growing digital channel by advertising expenditure.”

Zenith forecasts that advertising expenditure on online video will rise from US$45bn in 2019 to US$61bn by 2021, at an average rate of 18 percent a year, compared to 10 percent a year for internet advertising. That will lead television adspend toshrink from US$183bn to US$180bn over the same period.

“Video inventory is in high demand, and to meet the need, publishers have supplemented video ads that appear before, during or after video content with in-stream ads – video ads that pop up beside other content, such as text, images or social media posts – and out-stream or ‘in-read’ ads,” said the report.

Hence, the company said that brands need to make clear distinctions between the way they use in-stream and out-stream ads.

The In-stream ads are ones that reach consumers who are actively seeking to view video, meanwhile the Out-stream ads  are the ones that reach people who are interested in the content that the ads sit alongside, and can quickly and easily scroll past these ads.

“Looking beyond in-stream and out-stream, social platforms like Facebook and Snapchat are making Augmented Reality (AR) accessible to both consumers and brands through their AR video ads,” said the report.