A note on the label
“Emerging markets” is a broad and informal term. It covers countries with very different incomes, languages, regulations and infrastructure, and even within one country a big city and a rural area can look like different worlds. Statements in this article describe patterns that often appear in places where fixed broadband and large television sets were less common, not rules that hold everywhere.
The phone is often the first screen
In many countries, people reached the internet for the first time through a phone rather than a desktop computer. Where home broadband is expensive, patchy or unavailable, a phone with a mobile data plan can become the main way to watch video. That reverses the order of the wealthy-market story, where television came first, then computers, then phones.
This has a number of effects:
- Mobile-first design. Services and creators build for a small screen, so mobile viewing is the default rather than an afterthought.
- Vertical framing. Holding a phone upright is natural, so filming vertical video for phones is common practice.
- Shared and family devices. One phone may be used by several people, which affects accounts, profiles and what a service can learn about each viewer.
- Short sessions. Viewing is often fitted around work, travel and limited charging.
Data is a cost to manage
For many users, video is limited less by interest than by data allowance. Streaming video consumes a lot of data compared with text or audio, and prepaid plans make that cost visible every time someone presses play. Several responses follow.
- Lower qualities. Viewers often choose lower settings to save data. A lower video bitrate and resolution reduce usage while still being watchable on a small screen. Services that use adaptive bitrate technology can respond to weak connections by lowering quality automatically.
- Offline downloads. Downloading a video over a cheaper or faster connection, such as public Wi-Fi, then watching later saves mobile data and avoids buffering.
- Data-saver modes. Some apps include options to restrict quality by default.
- Lighter apps. Developers sometimes make cut-down versions of apps for devices with limited memory and storage.
- Bundled data. Some mobile operators offer data packages tied to particular services. Policies and offers differ widely and change frequently.
Network quality also varies. Where mobile coverage is uneven, buffering causes include congestion and weak signal as much as the service itself. The arrival of 5G networks may improve this in some places, but deployment is uneven and takes time.
Low-cost devices
Affordable smartphones have made video access possible for many more people. These devices often have modest processors, small storage and older software versions, which can limit which video formats they play efficiently. Some devices rely on hardware support for older, widely used codecs, so services may keep serving formats such as H.264 even when newer ones compress better. Choosing a format involves a trade-off between how efficiently it compresses and how many devices can play it.
Local language and local content
Language is often decisive. Many viewers prefer to watch in their own language, and a wide range of regional languages exists in many countries. Services have responded with local-language catalogs, subtitles and, increasingly, dubbing, a topic that overlaps with our article on AI dubbing. Local stories, music and film industries are often among the most watched content in their own countries, and international services frequently invest in regional production for that reason.
Accessibility also matters: where literacy varies, spoken and visual content can serve people who find text hard, though subtitles remain helpful in noisy or shared settings.
Payment and business models
Subscription payment can be a hurdle where card use is uncommon. Services have tried alternatives such as mobile wallets, carrier billing, prepaid vouchers or cheaper mobile-only plans, though availability varies. Advertising-funded viewing is also a significant model because it removes the need to pay directly. The wider economics are discussed in our look at streaming revenue.
Creators also earn in different ways. Where payment tools are harder to access, creators may rely more on advertising revenue shares, brand arrangements and tips from viewers. Some places have a lively creator economy built around short, mobile-friendly clips.
Reasons for caution
- Data quality. Statistics about usage in emerging markets are patchy, and survey results may not generalise. Be wary of precise-sounding claims.
- Great diversity. Patterns in one country often do not apply in another.
- Rules and politics. Governments set different rules for content, data localisation and platform operation, which affect what is available. Details change and are best checked locally.
- Risks to users. Misinformation and unsafe content can spread through video, and moderation resources are often unevenly distributed across languages.
What this tells us about video generally
Constraints often drive innovation. Techniques developed for low-bandwidth and low-cost devices, such as efficient encodings, offline viewing and data-saving modes, benefit viewers everywhere. Because much of the world’s future online audience is likely to come through mobile access, the habits formed in these markets may shape the wider industry, though how strongly remains uncertain.