New data from Conviva shows that overall streaming viewing minutes grew 10% in the first quarter of 2022 versus 2021, driven by triple-digit increases in Asia.
The report noted Asia, excluding China, has a smaller base than other regions analyzed but showed massive 172% growth in streaming time.
Also contributing to growth, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming Q1 report, was Africa (up 55%), Oceania (up 50%) and South America (up 34%).
Increases for viewing time in more highly saturated markets of Europe and North America were more muted, rising 9% and 5% respectively.
Conviva said the most recent quarter continued the trend seen in Q4 of streaming growth accelerated by the pandemic starting to stabilize.
“Despite recent news of Netflix’s subscriber contraction, streaming continues to grow worldwide, encompassing an ever-growing stable of platforms offering unique and original content,” said Keith Zubchevich, president and CEO of Conviva, in a statement. “In mature markets like the US and Europe, viewers are upscreening from small devices to Smart TVs, setting the foundation for streaming to overtake linear TV on the big screen.”
Indeed, the report showed big screens continue to be king when it comes to streaming with 77% of all streamed minutes globally happening on a big screen device – a category that includes connected TVs, smart TVs and gaming consoles). The figure was even higher in North America at 83%. Asia was the only area where large screens didn’t account for more than 50% of streaming minutes – but the region did see a big bump in the quarter increasing from 27% last quarter to 43% in Q1. Mobile phones still represent the favored streaming screen in Asia, according to the report, with 45% of streamed minutes happening on those devices.
Smart TVs in particular are where viewers are increasingly tuning in for a big screen experience, with the category growing 4% year over year. Connected TVs, meanwhile declined by 1%, while the share for desktops and gaming consoles were down 15%.
“Last quarter saw connected TVs decline for the first time ever, down 2%, and smart TVs were up 37%. These trends continued this quarter, further cementing the fervor for big screens even as viewers trade in dongles for built-in capabilities,” Conviva stated in the report.
And multiple players in the smart TV space saw gains above 20% in terms of minutes streamed including Vizio (up 21%), Samsung TV (22%), and LG TV (28%) – with Android TV leading the way for growth in streamed minutes at 78%.
However, connected TV leader Roku still kept the largest share of viewing time by far at 30.78% (growing 12% in viewing time), followed by Amazon Fire TV at 16.45% share (down 4% in viewing time) and Samsung TV with 13% share.
At the end of the first quarter Roku’s active accounts totaled 61.3 million, while the company said streaming hours increased 14% year over year to 20.9 billion.