The adoption of streaming by consumers slowed in the fourth quarter of 2021, with just a 1% increase in the fourth quarter, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming report.
Globally, adoption of streaming by consumers grew just 7% year on year, Conviva said.
“Like many other industries, streaming adoption spiked during the pandemic, as people spent more time at home and continually sought the fresh, creative content delivered by streaming publishers,” said Keith Zubchevich, president and CEO, Conviva. “Fortunately, like sweatpants and sourdough, streaming is holding on to the enormous growth it saw over the past eight quarters. The growth rate may be slowing, but the streaming industry is now well established and unlikely to ever go back to prepandemic levels.”
Conviva also found that streamers increasingly using smart TVs to view streaming content. Smart TVs showed a 47% increase in streaming time year over year. Android TV was up 42%, LG grew 36% and Samsung grew 27%. Connected TV devices were down 2%, although Roku was up 12%. Amazon Fire TV was down 7% and Apple TV lost 1%.
Also: Global Streaming Rises 21% in 3Q: Conviva Report
In terms of viewing quality, Conviva found that it took longer for videos to start playing, particularly in Asia and North America. On the other hand, buffering problems were down 22% and bitrates improved by 12%.
Advertising start time grew to 2.6 seconds from just 0.3 seconds a year ago. But there were fewer missed ad opportunities and picture quality improved.
Conviva collected the data for its report using proprietary sensor technology across 500 million viewers who watched 200 billion streams per year using 4 billion applications. ■
