Online video continues to drive the growth in data use, according to Ofcom’s 2019 Communications Market Report.
The UK regulator says consumers are upgrading to faster broadband with the number of fibre-to-the-cabinet connections overtaking standard broadband copper connections for the first time.
The number of superfast broadband lines increased by 17% as people upgraded from standard broadband services.
Household internet take-up remains at 87%, and 79% of UK adults personally use a smartphone.
240GB is being used on average each month per fixed broadband connection and 2.9GB in an average month being used on each mobile data connection.
The growth is coming largely from subscription video on demand services from Netflix and Amazon which grew by 5 percentage points to 58%. There was no increase in the proportion of viewers watching the PSB broadcasters’ free catch-up services (BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4 and My5).
For the first time Ofcom has produced the report as an interactive data portal that makes it possible to access data collected from industry by Ofcom, data from Ofcom’s consumer research, as well as headline figures from selected third parties (including BARB and RAJAR).
