Bengaluru, Jun 22 (IANS): With video emerging as the most preferred form of content over the last few years, a new report on Tuesday revealed that there are 356 million mobile video viewers in India.

The InMobi's State of Programmatic Mobile Video Advertising in India report throws insights on the change in advertiser spends and the performance of video as a format from data analysed on its advertising platform between January 2020 and January 2021.

"The increasing mobile video consumption, which was seemingly an emerging trend during the lockdown, is now redefining the advertising strategies of some of the leading brands," Vasuta Agarwal, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

"With the time spent in watching videos at an all-time high and the growing engagement, we see a strong potential for programmatic advertising across sectors," Agarwal added.

The report said that smartphones continue to rapidly penetrate India's demography, and this has fuelled a 194 per cent growth in Mobile Video Advertisements.

As 62 per cent of mobile users in India watch videos on their devices, brands understand the increasing impact of mobile video advertising.

In-app video ad engagement peaked over the last year with a 23 per cent growth YoY in Click-Through Rate (CTR). When compared with other formats, in-app videos witnessed a 112 per cent higher CTR.

According to the report, vertical videos ads saw a 25 per cent YoY growth in CTR in the review period as compared to 18 per cent YoY growth in case of landscape video ads.

Similarly, when compared with other formats, the CTR for vertical video ads was 4x higher and that for landscape video ads was 47 per cent higher.