Netflix continues to dominate North American networks, accounting for 34.9% of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours, according to analysis from Sandvine.
Sandvine's latest bi-annual Internet traffic trends report found that Amazon Instant Video meanwhile has established itself as the second largest paid streaming video service in North America. While still only accounting for 2.6% of downstream traffic, its share has more than doubled in the past 18 months.
"With both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video gaining bandwidth share in North America during 2014, it will be fascinating to see how a standalone HBOGO streaming option will impact networks when it launches in 2015," said Dave Caputo, president and CEO at Sandvine. "The dynamic streaming video market underscores how important it is that operators around the globe have the business intelligence and big data solutions in place to understand the ever-changing behaviour of their subscribers."
Netflix is in fact so established that on one fixed network in Australasia, where Netflix isn't even available yet, approximately 2.5% of subscribers are accessing the service and it comprises as much as 4% of peak downstream traffic.
Another growth engine is Facebook's introduction of video autoplay, which has seen average subscriber usage increase by as much as 60% on mobile networks and over 200% on fixed networks in the past year.
As far as other services, Sandvine found that in advance of plans to start offering a standalone streaming subscriptions in the US, HBO GO accounts for just 1% of downstream traffic in the region.
Streaming continues to supplant older forms of Internet video. As a percentage of traffic, file-sharing traffic continues to decline globally in almost all regions except Asia-Pacific, where it still accounts for more than 33% of total traffic.
And in Latin America, contrary to Sandvine's own predictions, World Cup streaming on some mobile networks accounted for just a tenth of traffic.
"Apparently, consumers still prefer to view major sporting events on television, with mobile devices as a backup," Sandvine noted.
