The Power of Mobile Video

By now, there’s little doubt that mobile is the future of video—look no further than your pocket for proof. Screens are getting larger, data speeds are skyrocketing, and “selfie” is now officially enshrined in our collective lexicon. Even CBS is cutting the cord. Crazy, right?

Maybe we should have seen this coming. After all, smartphone adoption in the United States has surpassed 60%, up from 36% just two years ago. Mobile download speeds doubled in 2013, and monthly data usage on mobile devices rose to 1.5 exabytes per month—50% more data than the entire internet used in 2000. But where is all this traffic going?

THE MOBILE TRAFFIC MONSTER

As it turns out, it’s going to YouTube and Netflix. Together the two companies account for a staggering 43% of aggregate U.S. internet traffic during peak hours, with YouTube reporting that nearly 40% of its traffic comes from mobile devices. YouTube continues to be the largest single source of real-time entertainment traffic (the leading category of mobile data usage), making it the leading source of internet traffic in the entire world.

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