Internet application traffic share

I found this report from Sandvine especially interesting. It looks at the traffic share for different websites and applications. It has both the global figures and the APAC figures. Because of issues getting the data, APAC doesn’t include China and India, which makes it a bit more applicable to Vietnam.

Source: Sandvine

First, let’s look at where traffic is right now. (Even in these global numbers, India and China are not included - right now it seems like China has its own internet with Weibo and WeChat among many others.)

With traffic growing by almost 40% overall, it is important to recognize that pretty much ALL traffic types grew during this time, even the ones that are down as an overall percentage (like file sharing, which grew by volume over normal, but not as fast as other applications).

The one that gained the most share is video streaming, which is basically taking over all internet traffic. Later we will see that in APAC, this means Netflix and Youtube, along with a few other smaller players.

Social networking is also taking share, and its bandwidth usage is no joke at more than 10%. Areas that have seen growth but are losing share are file sharing and audio. My superficial read on this is that streaming is taking over file sharing, and video killed the audio star.

Source: Sandvine

When we look at APAC (remember without India or China), Youtube is stealing share by a wide margin, if these figures are correct. Netflix is second, but this is its lowest showing in any region, which Sandvine attributes to a weak content library in the target languages.

Facebook increased its share in social media, but its video is lagging behind the others in terms of share.

TikTok is also growing, adding another video site to the mix:

Even though it is outside the Top 10, TikTok checked in at #17 in the APAC market, its strongest regional showing and worthy of a mention since it has gained a significant new user base during the pandemic that has spawned some viral videos.

This is one of the few Chinese applications that have been able to build a broad global base. I wonder what will happen over time - is it niche or can it takeover for Youtube or does it compete with social media?

There are no gaming sites in the top 10 in APAC, which seems like a missed opportunity for Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo. And it’s Sony and Nintendo’s backyard.

The chart only shows the top 10 applications, which account for a little over 60% of traffic. Still 40% of the traffic for just these 10 apps or all websites seems quite high. It is about the same in all regions, so its not that APAC stands out. But it does speak to how so much of the internet (traffic-wise) revolves around just a few big sites/apps.

The report is small but has lots of interesting info. I highly recommend checking it out.