Global streaming activity grew 21% in the third quarter, led by a 273% jump in Africa, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming Report.
In North America, where streaming is more established, time spent streaming increased 2%.
Conviva said that big screens accounted for 73% of all streaming viewing time worldwide. That includes streaming on connected TV devices, smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Ad attempts and ad impressions were up over 30% compared to the second quarter. Just 15% of ads in the third quarter were not delivered as intended, for a 23% decrease in missed ad opportunities. Ad duration decreased by 3% from last quarter to 26 seconds, satisfying consumer requests for shorter ad breaks.
Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung TV were the top devices used globally. Roku had a 31.1% share, followed by Amazon Fire with a 16.8% share.
Conviva found that delays caused by buffering have all but disappeared. In all of the regions it measured, buffering was under 1%.
In North America buffering was reduced by 29% from a year ago. It remains the region with the least buffering at 0.19%.
Year over year, picture quality also made gains with bitrate improving in every region, Conviva said.
“Streaming viewing has grown 266% over the past three years, completely transforming the entertainment, publishing and advertising industries,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva. “Topics like quality of experience, advertising measurement and social engagement are now top of mind and the publishers that effectively leverage opportunities to improve in these areas will not only lead the industry in subscribers and viewer satisfaction, but also revenue.”
The report also found streaming publishers investing heavily in video content on social media platforms in Q3 2021 – especially YouTube – in order to test new content and promote their catalog with viewers.
Conviva’s data is primarily collected using proprietary sensor technology with a global footprint of more than 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year across nearly 4 billion applications streaming on devices.
