jatiN mahindrA doT coM

France saw widespread growth in online video viewing during the past year, as audience size and video engagement both increased significantly, according to a new report from comScore.

The number of online video viewers in France increased 36 percent to 34.6 million, while the number videos viewed grew 141 percent to 5.4 billion. The average time spent viewing videos online nearly doubled to 11.7 hours per viewer in September.

"The online video market in France has rapidly expanded during the past year as Internet users demonstrate their preference for the sight, sound and motion of video for consuming online content," said Delphine Gatignol, comScore business development manager in France.

"While the Internet is still widely used for functional reasons, increasingly it has become an entertainment channel and the continued emergence of online video is a significant driver behind this trend."

Driven by the popularity of YouTube (which accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed on the property), Google sites ranked as the top video content property in September with 22.9 million viewers and 1.8 billion total videos viewed, representing a 33.5 percent share of the French online video market.
French video site Dailymotion landed in the second spot with 394 million videos viewed, followed by Groupe TF1 (162 million videos), Megavideo (160 million videos), and Facebook (145 million videos).

Other highlights from September include:
   

• Viewers spent the longest time per video on Megaupload.com where they averaged 29.3 minutes per video.   
• The heaviest viewers of online video are males between the ages of 15-24 who watched approximately 21 hours of online video per person in September.   
• 22.9 million viewers watched 1.8 billion videos on YouTube.com (79 videos per viewer). 
• Females age 55 and older watched an average of 67 videos on YouTube.com in France, compared with males age 55 and older who watched 47 videos on the property during the month
   

 Related Articles:

> YouTube Videos In AdSense Could Drive Clicks

> 35 Ways To Improve Your Online Video Performance

> YouTube Strikes Deal With UK Broadcaster

Related posts:

1. YouTube Charts Show Performance of Popular Videos
2. Facebook Creeps Up the Charts as 178 Million Americans Watch Online Video
3. YouTube And Yahoo Top Video Sites In June
4. Millions Of Viewers Tune Into YouTube In May
5. YouTube Has Record Month In May
6. Broadband Continues To Drive Online Video Viewing
7. Hulu Users Watched 1 Billion Videos In March
8. Google And Hulu Top Video Properties In February
9. 173 Million Internet Users Watched Online Video In January
10. Google Increases Lead In Online Video
11. YouTube And Hulu See Record High Video Views
12. Online Video Viewing Sees New High in August