Those Netflix binges gobble up bandwidth

Report: Movie-streaming service responsible for 15% of usage worldwide

When it comes to who or what is using up all that internet bandwidth out there, Netflix is the biggest of the big.

That’s according to a new report from research firm Sandvine, which said Netflix is responsible for 15 percent of all internet bandwidth traffic. In its Global Internet Phenomena Report, Sandvine said that Netflix’s usage levels make it the No. 1 worldwide application for downstreaming content.

Netflix’s position was even more pronounced when compared to the other leading internet bandwidth users. Sandvine showed HTTP media streams took second place with 13.1 percent of all downstream traffic, and YouTube came in third with 11.4 percent.

Based on the size of Netflix’s subscriber base, it should probably be no surprise that the company uses up such a big chunk of internet bandwidth. When Netflix reported its second-quarter results, in July, it said it had 130.1 million subscribers worldwide, with 57.4 million of those coming from the United States.

In the U.S., Netflix had an even bigger piece of the bandwidth pie, with 19.1 percent of internet traffic. Among leading video streaming, Amazon Prime claimed 7.7 percent of downstream traffic, and YouTube had 7.5 percent.

Sandvine said that of total internet traffic worldwide, video accounts for 57.7 percent of bandwidth usage. Netflix claims the top spot among video streamers, with a 26.6 percent global share, followed by YouTube’s 21.3 percent share, Amazon Prime at 5.7 percent and Amazon-owned gaming site Twitch’s 3.5 percent.

Sandvine said it culled its data from 150 service providers that represent 2.1 billion internet service subscribers worldwide.