Just how common is video calling and video chat? According to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 19% of Americans have tried video calls or video chat either online or on a mobile phone.
This survey is the first from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has covered both online and mobile video calls, so there is no prior baseline data.
Researchers found that 23% of all Internet users and 7% of cell phone owners have made or participated in video calls. The nature of the study was to find out the number of users who have made either online or cellular video calls, so for users that have made both, the data was only counted once.
The full report has all the details in depth, but check out some highlights.
Internet Users
The Pew Internet Project actually surveyed Internet users in April 2009 about their experience with video calls; at the time, it found 20% of users had experience with the technology. In 2010, the survey results showed a slight increase to 23%. What’s more significant is that the number of video callers online on any given day doubled, going from 2% in 2009 to 4% in the summer of 2010.
Check out this table which breaks down online video calling by various demographics:
Here are some of the big takeaways:
- More than one out of three users (34%) with a household income over $75,000 a year had experience with video calling. This statistic decreases to just 15% for users with a household income of below $30,000 a year.
- Younger users are more likely to have used video calling. Individuals in the 18-29 demographic showed a 29% rate, whereas 25% of users 30-39 had video calling experience. This number slopes down more dramatically when you go to the 50-64 and 65+ demographics, both of which hover around 15%.
- Predictably, broadband is key; 26% of broadband users have experience with video chat, compared to only 8% of non-broadband users.
Cell Phone Users
While online video calls are pretty common (thanks to services like Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and others) mobile phone video calls are still much more of a novelty.
While video calling over mobile phones has existed in Europe and Asia a number of years, the trend in the U.S. is a lot more recent.
This summer, mobile video calls have been in the spotlight more and more, thanks to Apple’s FaceTime, Fring and other apps for the iPhone 4 and Android devices like the EVO 4G.
Because this is a new area for mobile devices, only 7% of cellular phone owners responded that they have experience with video calls via mobile phone.
Check out this chart:
Here are some of the takeaways:
- As with online video calls, higher-income households had more experience with video calling. Around 10% of users with a household income of over $75,000 a year had experience with mobile phone video calls, as opposed to 4% of users with a household income of under $30,000 a year.
- Likewise, younger users are more likely to have used mobile phone video calling. 9% and 8% of respondents age 18-29 and 30-39 had experience with mobile phone video calls, as compared with 4% and 3% for older age groups.
- The male-female split was about the same. Roughly 8% of males responded that they had experience with video calls on mobile devices, compared to 6% of female users.
It will be interesting to see how these figures change in the future, especially when social networks like Facebook get better video calling integration.
How often do you make video calls? Let us know.
Reviews: Android, Facebook, Fring, Internet, MSN Messenger, Skype
More About: facetime, fring, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Skype, video calling, video calls
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