The number of U.S. mobile subscribers watching video on their mobile devices rose more than 40 percent year-over-year in both the third and fourth quarters of 2010 according to a new report from The Nielsen Company.
The researchers found that nearly 25 million Americans watched an average of four hours and 20 minutes of mobile video per month in both the third and fourth quarter of 2010.

The total amount of time spent viewing was up 33 percent in the third quarter and 20 percent in the fourth quarter when compared to the same respective quarters a year early.

Teens were the most avid consumers of mobile video watching an average of 8 hours and 40 minutes a month in third quarter and 7 hours and 13 minutes in the final quarter. The lightest users were those over age 65.

Download the report (.pdf file)
Not surprisingly, Nielsen says the growing popularity of video was in large part due to the rapid adoption of smartphones. In the final quarter of 2010, 31% of mobile subscribers had a smartphone versus just 23% in the last quarter of 2009.

Discuss the report in Digital Home's Smartphone and Tablet discussion forum .