If you’re a Netflix subscriber, chances are that you are contributing to 15 percent of the downlink traffic of the internet. A report by Sandvine – a network equipment company – suggests that the streaming service is the biggest contributor to the volume of downstream traffic worldwide.
Netflix, which added almost 27 million subscribers in the past year, leads the front in video streaming services as well, with a global market share of 26.58 percent. The report says that video streaming is the top traffic contributor of the internet followed by web browsing and gaming.
Interestingly, file sharing website Openload (which might be familiar to pornography connoisseurs, wink wink) is ahead of mainstream services like Hulu and HBO Go.
Meanwhile, BitTorrent holds the top position for upstream traffic with 22 percent market share. Most of it is due to exclusive content tied to a streaming service: Game of Thrones for HBO, Narcos for Netflix, Jack Ryan for Amazon and The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu. This clearly denotes that piracy still alive and kicking. Sandvine’s 2017 internet phenomena report highlighted that approximately 7 million consumers in North America use pirated TV streams to consume content.
With more and more people getting onto the Internet, services like Netflix are only going to continue growing rapidly. The company is heavily investing in creating shows for local audiences of different countries. It is also experimenting with interactive shows which will let you choose your own path to entice customers to stay on the platform for a longer time.
Here are some other interesting findings from the report:
- 50 percent of the internet traffic is now encrypted.
- Instagram is the topmost social network in terms of traffic, followed by Facebook.
- Skype is the top messaging app, followed by WhatsApp.
- Spotify holds the crown amongst music streaming services.
- League of Legends is the top game, followed by Epic Games’ Fortnite.
We should take this report with a pinch of salt as the company has clarified that it doesn’t have significant data from China and India – two of the biggest internet consumer nations of the world. The numbers might be significantly different for the likes of Netflix if more granular data from these two countries is included. Netflix currently isn’t available in China, and both countries have a number of major streaming platforms with millions of subscribers each.
Read next: Google’s new Voice Access app lets you use Android hands-free
Source: The Next Web
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