Netflix miles ahead in video streaming race

Online video content giant Netflix remains at the top of the video streaming charts, ahead of popular platforms YouTube and Hulu, according to a new report conducted by broadband service company Sandvine.

The report reveals that in the first half of 2013, Netflix’s share of all US prime-time ‘downstream’ traffic delivered over fixed networks was 32.3%, followed by YouTube (17.11%) and then HTTP (11.11%).

However, YouTube is up significantly from 13.8% – something that Sandvine attributes to a jump in ‘home roaming’, which is the use of smartphones and tablets on the home network to stream video and audio content.

According to the report, more than 20% of all traffic on fixed networks in North America was generated by smartphones or tablets.

Of these, Apple devices accounted for over 45% of all content streaming.

“We predict from this data that 2013 will be the year long-form video will make its move onto mobile networks,” Dave Caputo, Sandvine’s CEO, said.

“The ‘home roaming’ phenomenon, the concept of subscribers voluntarily offloading mobile traffic onto Wi-Fi networks, has continued. This combined with increased consumption of real-time entertainment on mobile networks globally, and the doubling of Netflix traffic on mobile networks in North America, suggests that users are getting comfortable with watching longer form videos on their handheld devices.”