While many have said Netflix is the largest internet bandwidth hog in the world, not so with mobile video traffic. YouTube takes that crown, according to a new report from Sandvine (“Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H2012”), and accounts for as much as 25% of network data–and no less than 12% at any given time. Looking at the whole spectrum of media traffic, (i.e. Pandora and Netflix), audio and video streaming make up more than half of mobile data traffic in North America, and it’s on track to reach 60% by 2014.
The report is based on data from a selection of Sandvine’s 200-plus customers spanning North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Caribbean and Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
In North America, real-time entertainment is 50% of downstream mobile data traffic today–up from 34% only 6 months ago. YouTube is 27% of that figure, Netflix is 2%, and Pandora is around 6%.
Browsing the web and social networking services are the only other two categories of usage that account for a significant amount of mobile data. In North America, web surfing is accounts for 21% of mobile data usage, social networking accounts for 10%. Combined, everything else such as texting, reaches 19%.
In the future, Sandvine says that cloud/i-Cloud continuous connections will be a big driver of data, i.e. for song and photo back-up on smartphones.
Other highlights from the report:
•YouTube is the largest source of mobile video traffic in every region examined, accounting for as much as 25% of network data and no less than 12%
•In North America, video and audio streaming make up more than half of mobile data traffic, led by YouTube, Pandora and Netflix
•Instant messaging applications like WhatsApp continue to enjoy widespread adoption while eating into SMS revenue; for example, on an Asian mobile network serving one million subscribers, an average of 7.6 million WhatsApp messages were sent per day
•Mobile device usage on fixed networks: Home roaming accounts for 9% of total fixed traffic on North America’s household networks.
