People in China watch half as much television each day as Americans, but they are more likely to catch video on computer or mobile phones, according to new research.
The study, from Nielsen, looked into the technology habits of some 27,000 online consumers in 55 countries in March.
Mobile video viewing is much more common in Asian and Pacific countries than it is in the United States or Europe.
The Chinese are 51 percent more likely to watch mobile video than people elsewhere in the world, while Americans are 55 percent less likely, the study said.
Nielsen executive Matt O’Grady suggested it’s primarily because fewer citizens in these Asian countries have access to a large number of cable channels.
A far greater percentage of Americans than Chinese have an extensive number of cable television channels in their homes, said Matt O’Grady, a senior vice president at Nielsen.
“It’s forcing them to have another access point,” O’Grady said.
The typical American watched more than five hours of TV each day in March.
Americans, on average, watched five hours and four minutes of TV each day in March, behind only Serbia and Macedonia, Nielsen said. The average Chinese resident watched two hours, 36 minutes of TV each day, the study said. Thailand, at 2:11, had the fewest hours of TV watching.
Homes in the United States are among the most likely to have high-definition television. More than half of American homes with TV have high-definition sets, Nielsen said.
People in China and Hong Kong are the most apt to watch video on computers at work, Nielsen said. Meanwhile, U.S. residents are 40 percent less likely than their counterparts across the world to watch at work.
Saudi Arabians and Pakistanis are at least twice as likely as others in the world to own tablet computers or say they’re going to buy them shortly, the survey said.
In the U.S., home of Apple and its iPad, people are nearly 20 percent less interested in the devices.
“At the beginning of 2010, analysts aplenty were speaking about the tablet and a screen void it would fill between TV, PC and mobile,”
