Hey! Did you know that people like to watch videos on their phones? Well, according to the latest Mobile Internet Phenomena Report, people really, really, like mobile video. That isn't a surprise to any mobile operator in the world, but things have shifted over the past year.
In the Global Report, video was 60% of the downstream traffic, but for mobile it is even more.
Mobile video is 65% of downstream traffic on mobile networks, led by the usual suspects, but I wanted to go a bit deeper with my investigation because of a theory that we have been developing around how the use of video is changing. I touched on this the other day around the use of social video. To confirm this theory, I added a few things to the analysis in the Mobile Report this year, one being the addition of a "totals" to the calculations. Doing this gives a better view to help understand not only how the downstream is growing (which everyone focuses on), but also the upstream, which is often under-resourced on mobile networks.
I went back to the 2019 Global Report, did a totals calculation, and video was ~55% of overall traffic on global networks. For the 2020 Mobile Internet Phenomena Report, video was 62% of overall traffic, the numbers are driven higher on mobile by social video on the upstream – without even breaking out Instagram video from photos – while Instagram is 7.1% of upstream mobile traffic. It also doesn't account for all of the videos that are in the iCloud and Google Photo Stream uploads.
So not a surprise, but video is here to stay, not only on the downstream, but keep an eye on your upstream too, as that dynamic is changing significantly. Today we release the report, and I look forward to sharing the details with you on our webinars.
Don't forget! Register for one of two webinars on Wednesday, 4 March to get an early copy of the report in your inbox on Thursday.
4 March, 9am EST
4 March, 9pm EST
Topics: Streaming Video, Mobile Internet Phenomena, Instagram
