Netflix continues to dominate North American networks, accounting for 34.9% of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours.
Amazon Instant Video has established itself as the second largest paid streaming video service in North America. While still only accounting for 2.6% of downstream traffic, its share has more than doubled in the past 18 months, according to Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H 2014.
In advance of plans to start offering a standalone streaming subscriptions in the US, HBO Go accounts for just 1% of downstream traffic in the region.
On a fixed network in Australasia, where Netflix isn’t even available yet, approximately 2.5% of subscribers are accessing the service and it comprises as much as 4% of peak downstream traffic.
As for services such as iTunes, Hulu, and BitTorrent, they have all seen declines over the past six months. Hulu dropped from 1.74% usage to 1.41%, iTunes dropped from 3.64% to 2.77%, and BitTorrent saw a decrease from 3.4% to 2.8%.
In Latin America, contrary to Sandvine’s earlier predictions, World Cup streaming on some mobile networks accounted for just 10% of traffic. Apparently, consumers still prefer to view major sporting events on television, with mobile devices as a backup.
Apple’s iOS 8 launch in September saw the software update account for over 12% of peak traffic on one Middle Eastern fixed access network.
The report is based on data from a selection of Sandvine’s 250-plus communications service provider customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
“With both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video gaining bandwidth share in North America during 2014, it will be fascinating to see how a standalone HBOGO streaming option will impact networks when it launches in 2015,” said Dave Caputo, president and CEO, Sandvine.
“The dynamic streaming video market underscores how important it is that operators around the globe have the business intelligence and big data solutions in place to understand the ever-changing behavior of their subscribers.”
