When it comes to devouring bandwidth online, no company can hold a candle to Netflix.
The streaming video giant consumes 15% of the total downstream volume of traffic globally, according to the latest Global Internet Phenomena Report from Sandvine. In the United States, that figure jumps to 19.1% of total traffic. Netflix was followed by HTTP media streams, representing 13.1% of all downstream traffic; YouTube (11.4%); web browsing (7.8%); and MPEG transport streams (4.4%).
Demand for Stranger Things and other Netflix shows spikes even higher at night.
"At peak hour on fixed networks, this number can spike as high as 40% on some operator networks in the region, " the study says.
Sandvine gives credit to Netflix for its superior stream compression technology, noting that otherwise "Netflix could easily be three times their current volume and at 40% of network traffic all the time."
Streaming video continues to grow as well. In the U.S., Amazon Prime Video has now surpassed YouTube in data consumption (7.7% vs 7.5%).
The data Sandvine uses to compile its Global Internet Phenomena Report comes from more than 150 service-provider customers globally, representing 2.1 billion subscribers. The Canadian company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, does note in its report that they don't include significant data from China or India.


























































































































































