Latest ByteMobile Mobile Analytics Report Provides Operators With Details on Subscriber Behaviour by Device Type, Content and Time of Day
Santa Clara, Calif, October 23, 2012 – Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) published the ByteMobile Mobile Analytics Report today for the fourth quarter of 2012. This report provides insights into the profile of the mobile data network, application traffic patterns and subscriber quality of experience (QoE) on operators’ networks – including how subscriber behaviour results in content-specific busy hours on mobile networks, how usage of mobile apps differs by device type, and how the mobile video user experience varies by network and region.
This quarter’s Mobile Analytics Report highlights different subscriber behaviours from a variety of device types and operating systems. Citrix found that Android smartphone and tablet data consumption patterns are very similar in volume, with media players and Internet browsing consuming 70 percent of mobile data volume from devices running the operating system. In comparison, media players, iTunes and browsers such as Safari make up the majority of iOS mobile data volume accounting for 75 percent of data volume for the iPhone and 95 percent for the iPad. The analysis further illustrates how subscriber interests and content patterns change throughout the day. The results identify certain peak hours of content consumption, which negatively impacted network performance by as much as 30 percent.
“This report serves as a vital resource for operators by demonstrating when capacity is strained throughout the day and what applications subscribers are using most,” said Chris Koopmans, vice president and general manager of Service Provider Platforms, Citrix. “For example, we observed that subscribers generate greater demand for mobile video in the late evening hours of 10 to 11 p.m., which coincides with a social networking busy hour of 10 p.m., and differs from the 4 p.m. busy hour for consuming news, weather and maps. This type of data can be used by carriers to really understand subscriber behaviour and, in turn, improve their quality of service.”
In the report, mobile messaging applications were analysed to show subscribers use Skype twice as much on the iPad than on the iPhone. In contrast, iPhone users use Facebook Messenger three times more often than iPad users. To validate the use of messaging applications on the iPhone, the report indicates that 94 percent of subscribers use one of the top four messaging apps: Skype (30 percent), WhatsApp (24 percent), Viber (22 percent) and Facebook Messenger (18 percent).
In a recent announcement from Facebook, the social media frontrunner has reached 600 million active users on its mobile application, accounting for 60 percent of its total user base. Today’s Mobile Analytics Report indicates that the popular mobile application from Facebook is instrumental in driving user traffic to other sites which generate 77 percent of overall Facebook mobile data traffic volume. The five sites that generate the majority of this data traffic are YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Yahoo and eBay.
Additional data in the report examines mobile video traffic worldwide. The majority of mobile network data traffic is from video and web traffic, with an average of 75 percent across the globe. The findings revealed that North America and Europe have similar mobile video traffic patterns, while South America and Asia have slightly lower video content consumption on mobile devices. The Middle East has the highest average of mobile video traffic by volume.
The findings in the Mobile Analytics Report are generated from Smart Capacity™ Mobile Analytics, the company’s mobile data traffic reporting solution. The Mobile Analytics Report anonymously sources data traffic statistics from 3G and 4G networks of the Citrix ByteMobile global tier-one customer base and provides insight into the current state of the mobile ecosystem. Its findings have been cited widely by industry market research firms and the media.
