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Report shows that most mobile data is now used for watching videos

4th September 2014
4G broadcast

It’s no surprise that mobile data use is up now that 4G is widely available but it seems that the way people are using data might be changing too, as a new mobile analytics report reveals that over half the data usage by mobile users comes from viewing videos and long videos in particular have become a lot more popular on mobile devices since 4G became available.

That’s according to a new Citrix report. The report says that 52% of data usage is from videos and that 57.61% of that video traffic is from YouTube / Google video, as you might expect since that tends to be home to shorter videos.

But surprisingly a large number of people are also using Netflix and other services which host television shows and movies. In fact according to the report mobile users are 1.5 times more likely to view long videos, such as movies, over 4G than over 3G, so it just goes to show that 4G is changing the way we consume media from mobile devices.

Interestingly iOS users consume 38% of video data, while Android users are responsible for just 27.5%, despite there being more Android devices around.

Other things highlighted in the report include the fact that 40% of mobile subscribers put a status update or upload a video or photo to a social network each day from a mobile device and that while sports content normally only drives around 0.5% of mobile data volume, it can spike enough to negatively affect the quality of the network during major events such as the World Cup.

The report was based on data gathered from over 130 mobile operators worldwide, so the findings relate to global mobile use rather than just the UK, but it’s likely that users here follow the global trend.

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Company director for our 4 websites as follows: 

  • 3G.co.uk 
  • 4G.co.uk
  • 5G.co.uk 
  • SIMOnly.co.uk

Kevin Thomas has worked for companies AT&T and BT with 15 years practical experience in the world of telecoms. He has a HND in telecommunications.

Kevin has also  worked in the world of Telecom reporting for 18 years. He has joint responsibility for 3G.co.uk and SIMOnly.co.uk and is lead Director for 5G.co.uk.

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