YouTube continues to dominate the top video sites tracked by Nielsen Online. Updating last year's top 10 video site survey this year we find YouTube even further ahead of its nearest "competitor," Google. As of July 2008, YouTube had more than 7.5 times more unique viewers than Google Video. Combined together, Google properties YouTube and Google Video have over 88 million unique viewers, and make up over 36% of the share of videos viewed on the Internet. A recent study by the Communications Workers of America revealed that the US ranks 15th worldwide in broadband speed. In other news, US broadband penetration crept up 0.27 percentage points to 90.76% in July 2008. YouTube continues to dominate the top 10 video sites with more than 77 million unique viewers (77,838,000 users) in July 2008 (see Figure 1). From January 2008 to July 2008 YouTube viewership grew by 17.6%, while Google Video fell by 15.6% from 12,223,000 to 10,315,000 unique viewers. Combining Google Video with YouTube more than 88,153,000 unique viewers watched videos at Google-owned sites, comprising more than 36 percent of all videos viewed. Hulu showed the strongest growth over the last seven months, growing by 2.7 times from 881,000 to 3,293,000 users. Megavideo grew by 2.4 times from 950,000 to 2,244,000 users while Yahoo! Video actually dropped by 18.5% from 2,636,000 to 2,147,000 unique viewers. Note that AOL Video was not included in this report, but should be near Google Video in viewership (see Nielsen Online Reports Topline U.S. Data For July 2008 of August 12, 2008 for general AOL statistics). Figure 1: Top 10 Video/Movie Sites by Unique Viewers for Dec. 2007 to July 2008 In terms of the number of videos viewed, Figure 2 shows the top 10 video sites by the number of streams. YouTube comes out on top with over 5 billion streams in July 2008, followed by Hulu with 105,830,000, Google Video at 64,437,000, Veoh at 48,122,000, and Dailymotion at 39,857,000 streams. Note that Figure 1 and 2 are plotted on log Y axes, due to the large disparity between the top 10 video sites. Figure 2: Top 10 Video Sites by Total Streams July 2008 In terms of stickiness Tudou.com leads all video sites at 207.5 minutes spent viewing per viewer in July 2008. Followed by hulu.com at 169.2 minutes, Veoh at 142.1 minutes, Megavideo at 129.1 minutes, and Crunchyroll.com at 122.9 minutes. Figure 3: Top 10 Video Sites by Time Spent by User for July 2008 A recent broadband study by the Communications Workers of America revealed that the US ranks 15th among all countries surveyed in broadband speed. The median download speed in the U.S. was 2.3 megabits per second (Mbps), while in Japan the connection speeds are as high as 63Mbps, nearly 30 times faster. As an example, people in Japan can download an entire movie in just two minutes, but it can take two hours or more in the United States. The US also trails South Korea at 49Mbps, Finland at 21Mbps, France at 17Mbps, and Canada at 7.6Mbps. The US has made little progress over the past year in increasing broadband speeds. Between 2007 and 2008, the median download speed increased by only four-tenths of a megabit per second (from 1.9 mbps to 2.3 mbps). At this rate of growth, the US would take more than 100 years to catch up with current rates in Japan. Despite the increased speed subscribers in Japan pay about as much for their broadband as their counterparts in the US. Rhode Island ranked first among the 50 states in broadband download speed, while Alaska ranked last. Michigan ranked 20th, with an average download speed of 2.57Mbps. Various studies (cited below) show that the composition of traffic on the Internet will shift towards video. Internet video is now about 25% of consumer Internet traffic and will reach 32 percent by the end of 2008. By 2012, the sum of all forms of video will amount to close to 90 percent of consumer traffic. Global IP traffic will double every two years through 2012, according to a Cisco 2008 study. From 2005 to 2008, high volume (over 100Mb/day) traffic increased from 9.3 to 14.1 percent over HTTP. Fixed caps like the one imposed by Comcast will not work in the long run as today's bandwidth hog becomes tomorrow's normal user. US broadband penetration grew to 90.76% in July 2008. Dial-up users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 9.24% of active Internet users, down 0.27 percentage points from 9.51% in June 2008 (see Figure 4). Figure 4: Web Connection Speed Trends - Home Users (US) In July 2008, broadband penetration among active Internet users in US homes grew by 0.27 percentage points to 90.76%, up from 90.49% in June. This increase of 0.27 points is below the average increase in broadband of 0.62 points per month over the last six months (see Figure 5). As of July 2008, 96.51% of US workers connected to the Internet with broadband, up 0.04 percentage points from the 96.47% share in June. At work, 3.49% connect at 56Kbps or less (see Figure 6). Figure 6: Web Connection Speed Trends - Work Users (US)Top 10 Video Sites by Unique Viewers
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 10 Video Sites by Total Videos Streamed
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 10 Video Sites by Time Spent
Source: Nielsen Online
US Ranks 15th in Broadband Speed Worldwide
Internet Traffic Doubling Every Two Years
Home Connectivity in the US
Source: Nielsen Online
Broadband Growth Trends in the US
Work Connectivity
Source: Nielsen Online
Further Reading
By website optimization on 29 Aug 2008 AM