Report: Global streaming consumption up 10% YoY
May 20, 2022
Global streaming consumption grew 10 per cent globally, including continued growth in mature markets such as North America (5 per cent) and Europe (9 per cent), during Q1 2022 as compared to Q1 2021, according to the latest State of Streaming report from Conviva, the analytics platform for streaming media.
“Despite recent news of Netflix’s subscriber contraction, streaming continues to grow worldwide, encompassing an ever-growing stable of platforms offering unique and original content,” said Keith Zubchevich, President and CEO, Conviva. “In mature markets like the US and Europe, viewers are upscreening from small devices to Smart TVs, setting the foundation for streaming to overtake linear TV on the big screen.”
Conviva’s Q1 2022 report found big screens (which includes connected TVs, smart TVs and gaming consoles) continue to be the streaming device of choice, responsible for 77 per cent of all streamed minutes globally in Q1 2022. Within the big screen category, smart TV viewing time grew by 34 per cent while desktops and gaming consoles declined by 15 per cent versus Q1 2021. Connected TV device viewing slightly declined again this quarter, down 1 per cent YOY. Within the connected TV category, Roku maintained the largest share of viewing time (31 pr cent) with Amazon Fire coming in second at 16 per cent.
When it came to actual minutes streamed, Android TV was the big leader in growth across all the top big screens – up 78 per cent. In yet another win for smart TVs, LG TV, Samsung TV, and Vizio TV all also had double-digit growth, up about 20 per cent.
Quality Improves with One Exception
Globally, bitrate/picture quality (up 17.3 per cent), buffering (down nearly 1 per cent) and video start failures (down 17.6 per cent) all improved significantly. Video start times were the one negative mark in terms of quality, as the wait for videos to start increased in every region, up 30 per cent globally. Viewers in Africa waited the longest (8 seconds) while Europe had the fastest start time, waiting just 4 seconds on average.
In Q4 2021, the streaming industry saw advertising delays and increased buffering, but streaming advertising bounced back nicely in Q1 2022. Ad impressions were up 18 per cent and ad attempts were up 14 per cent, thanks in part to big, live sporting events like the Super Bowl, March Madness and the Winter Olympics.
TikTok Reigns for Sports Leagues
Streaming on social platforms continues to be a key way for sports leagues to engage fans, and according to Conviva, TikTok was the only platform to grow its streaming audience share for every sports league measured. Bundesliga, Serie A, and the Premier League increased their audience share for streaming videos on TikTok the most at 6 per cent each with the NFL coming right behind them with 4 per cent growth on TikTok YOY. In fact, both Superbowl teams – the Rams and the Bengals – gained over 100k TikTok followers in a single day (February 13th – 14th).