Facebook Makes Up a Quarter of Mobile Upload Traffic
- Wednesday, May 14th, 2014
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YouTube is the single largest use of mobile data in North America, according to a report from Sandvine, making up 17.3 per cent of traffic during the first half of 2014.
Facebook is in second place, with 14.8 per cent. Looking at upstream traffic alone, though – the pictures, videos and other content being uploaded to the social network – it far outstrips any other service, with a 27 per cent share.
Both of these services individually outpace the data consumed by the mobile web as a whole, at 12.6 per cent (though this only includes HTTP traffic – SSL, the secure login protocol used online and in apps, makes up a further 7.3 per cent).
In Europe, the figures paint a very different picture. HTTP web traffic takes the top spot (16.9 per cent), followed by YouTube (15.2 per cent) and Facebook (13.7 per cent).
Overall, average mobile data usage in North America has increased eight per cent in the past six months, rising to to 465MB per person. Its worth noting, however, that this is the mean figure, and is seemingly inflated by a relatively small number of heavy users. The median for the same period, which Sandvine believes is more indicative of a typical user, stands at just 102 MB.
This far outstrips consumption of mobile data in Europe, where the mean stands at 394.4MB, and the median at just 19.4MB.