Mobile Video Viewership Has Doubled In Africa Year-Over-Year, Driven By YouTube (Study)

Canada-based broadband company Sandvine has today released a study titled The Global Internet Phenomena Report that takes a look at the growth of online video in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Culled over the summer from the data of more than 300 of Sandvine’s customers across the globe — with respect to both fixed and mobile networks — the company found that video viewership on mobile networks has more than doubled in Africa over the past year, from 8.6% of all internet usage to 18.1% today.

And the lion’s share of this video viewership is taking place on YouTube, which is already the top mobile app in both Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, according to Sandvine. The company predicts that YouTube will become the top mobile app in Africa within the next 18 months. Throughout the rest of the world, mobile web traffic is dominated by “real-time entertainment” services, as Sandvine puts it — or applications that facilitate streaming video or audio on-demand. Right now, however, usage in Africa is mostly comprised of web browsing and communication services.

Facebook is another huge player in the Middle East, where its eponymous app as well as Instagram and WhatsApp account for 20% of all mobile traffic in the region. And in addition to real-time entertainment, web users in the Asia-Pacific region tend to be outsized users of filesharing services like BitTorrent, which account for almost 30% of all traffic on fixed networks in the region.

Another unique characteristic of video viewership in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Sandvine, is the popularity of peercasting apps like QVoD and PPStream, which enable users to stream live events while simultaneously distributing these events to fellow viewers.

For additional findings about web and video trends across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, check out Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report right here.