The market for streaming services is continuing to grow, despite predictions of a pandemic peak.
The Q3 2021 State of Streaming report from Conviva, the continuous measurement platform for streaming media, says streaming viewing time grew by 21% over the last qw months.
Africa, Oceania and South America all grew their share while North America, an established streaming market, held steady with the most modest growth of any region, up just 2%.
“Streaming viewing has grown 266% over the past three years, completely transforming the entertainment, publishing and advertising industries,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva. “Topics like the quality of experience, advertising measurement and social engagement are now top of mind and the publishers that effectively leverage opportunities to improve in these areas will not only lead the industry in subscribers and viewer satisfaction but also revenue.”
The report also found streaming publishers investing heavily in video content on social media platforms in Q3 2021 – especially YouTube – in order to test new content and promote their catalogue to viewers. Streaming platforms increased their content output on YouTube by 97%, which resulted in an 8.4% increase in views and a 24% increase in engagement. Audiences for streaming platform accounts grew by 66% on YouTube in Q3 2021 as compared to Q3 2020.
According to Conniva, buffering, the scourge of online viewing has all but been eliminated with Q3 2021 marking the first quarter all regions experienced sub-1% buffering, with buffering seeing the largest improvements in more nascent regions like Africa, down 78% year over year. North America had the most modest gains over last year, with a 29% reduction in buffering, which was enough to maintain its position as the region with the least buffering at just 0.19%. Year over year, picture quality also made gains with bitrate improving in every region.
Big screens – which includes connected TV devices, smart TVs and gaming consoles – still accounted for almost three quarters (73%) of viewing time worldwide. Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung TV made up the bulk of big-screen viewing time globally with Roku again coming out on top with 31.1% share. Amazon Fire TV fell from 20% in Q3 2020 to 16.8% in Q3 2021, while Samsung gained nearly 3 percentage points over Q3 of last year going from 9.4% to 12.2% share of global viewing time. LG TV, Android TV, Apple TV and Chromecast also gained share over last year.