WATERLOO, ON – Streaming video and audio continues to dominate as our “real-time entertainment” source of choice – and we’re also getting more comfortable with watching them from all kinds of devices, especially our smartphones.
That’s according to a study released yesterday from Sandvine, which notes that real-time entertainment apps on mobile devices account for 20% of all traffic on North American fixed access networks, up from 9% a year ago.
In North America, Netflix is a main driver, accounting for almost a third of peak downstream traffic on fixed networks. On mobile networks, Netflix’s share has doubled in the past year. Youtube continues to dominate globally as the largest single source of internet traffic on both fixed and mobile access networks.
The growing popularity of Netflix has contributed to what Sandvine calls the “home roaming” phenomenon, which is the concept of subscribers voluntarily offloading mobile traffic onto Wi-Fi networks. Home roaming accounts for more than 25% of all streaming audio and video bytes being delivered to mobile devices being used in the home.
At over 10%, the iPad is the most popular device for consuming real-time entertainment. The Sandvine study says that Apple devices as a whole play a large role in its consumption, with Apple manufactured devices (which includes iPads, iPhones, iPods, AppleTVs, and Mac computers) accounting for 45% of all streaming audio and video consumption on North America fixed access networks.
“We predict from this data that 2013 will be the year long-form video will make its move onto mobile networks,” said Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo in a release. “Video continues to be the trend to watch as devices and tablets cater to higher definition content with larger screen sizes enabling the market for longer form video on mobile.”
Caputo said that next year’s World Cup in June 2014 will be the event that shapes the next evolution of streaming video, and predicts it will be the most streamed event to date.
Other findings from Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H2013 include:
Audio and video streaming
- Apple devices (iPads, iPhones, iPods, AppleTVs, and Macs) represent 45% of all audio and video streaming on North American home networks
- YouTube accounts for over 20% of mobile downstream traffic in North America, Europe and Latin America
- Netflix mobile data usage share doubled in the last 12 months in North America
Global data usage
- European mobile monthly usage increased 25% to 311MB in just six months
- Skype and other communications applications represent over 7% of traffic in Latin America
- Filesharing applications like BitTorrent continue to lose share in many regions but still account for 30% of traffic on Asia-Pacific fixed access networks
- Tablets and smartphones consume over 20% of all fixed data in North America
