How much of the internet's bandwidth does Netflix use

Netflix is a streaming service giant. Hugely successful across the world, it has millions upon millions of active subscribers at any given time. The company uses most of the internet bandwidth. But have you ever wondered how much of the internet bandwidth Netflix has used up to now?

Netflix’s internet bandwidth data

It has been calculated that Netflix, a TV series and movie-watching platform with millions of subscribers, consumed 15 percent of the internet traffic worldwide in 2018. According to the research conducted by the Canadian research company Sandvine using 2018 data, the streaming platform reported that it uses 15 percent of the internet bandwidth.

In 2019, we saw that this percentage had decreased significantly. Research by the Sandvine company in 2019 showed that Netflix uses 11.4 percent of internet bandwidth. Although we observed a decrease, 11.4% is quite high.

When we come to today, that is, in 2022, according to the report of the Sandvine company, Netflix uses 9.39 percent of the global internet bandwidth. While this shows that Netflix has suffered from a decline at specific points in its history, it still has achieved massive popularity, considering that over five billion people have access to the Internet.

In the 2022 report prepared by Sandvine, we see that it divides global internet bandwidth usage into regions. Netflix has 19.2 percent usage in the USA, 26.09 percent in EMEA countries, and 16.65 percent in APAC countries. According to the published 2022 report, the bandwidth usage percentages are as follows:

Video viewing: 48.9%
Social networks: 19.3%
Web: 13.1%
Messaging: 6.7%
Game: 4.3%
Shopping: 4.1%
File sharing: 1.3%
Cloud server: 1.1%
VPN and security: 0.9%
Sound: 0.2%

The world’s tech giants have leading applications in the four largest data flow categories. Google’s YouTube and Google applications account for almost half of all video streaming and web browsing traffic; Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp applications owned by Facebook company accounted for 93% of global social network traffic and 45% of messaging traffic.

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