Netflix gains and engages viewers
February 16, 2011
Online video viewing data for January showed a 45 per cent increase in time spent on video in the US, and underscored that Netflix’s streaming video service continues to build momentum.
Netflix has become the only paid video service to be a top 10 video site on the Internet when looking at total number of streams and unique visitors according to Nielsen data.
Netflix was also number 1 by a wide margin for time spent per viewer as its streaming site saw 23 per cent growth over December to more than 11 hours.
It still trails YouTube and Hulu, which provide mostly free content, in the key category of the number of video streams, but is growing much faster than them, according to data. YouTube’s total number of video streams amounted to nearly 8.5 billion, down 2.6 per cent from December, while Hulu streams increased 3.3 percent to more than 813 million. Netflix took the fifth spot with 200 million.
Overall, Nielsen said time spent watching online video rose 45 per cent from a year ago. The number of viewers grew only 3.1 per cent, but users streamed 28 per cent more video and spent more time with it.