Kiwis go nuts over streaming - data usage higher than ever

More availability for streaming movies and TV online has lead to a soar in data usage amongst Kiwis, according to Statistics New Zealand, who says Kiwis are using more data than ever.

The organisation says 143% more data was used in June 2015 than in June 2013, with people using more than 84,000 terabytes of data during June 2015 compared to 34,000 terabytes in the same month in 2013 (this does not include data used by mobile phone internet connections).

The data from Statistics NZ shows residential connections used over 90% of the total data. "This is equivalent to 45 gigabytes per household. It equates to every household watching around 27 hours of on-demand TV, or streaming 11 hours of HD video, per week," explains Jason Attewell, business performance senior manager, Statistics New Zealand.

"New Zealanders now have more options for streaming movies and TV online, and we're making the most of them," he says. "The greater availability of online streaming options, including subscription and non-subscription based services, has opened the door to content that often isn't broadcast in New Zealand," he says.

"Having access to more content has proved to be very popular – New Zealanders like to keep up with the rest of the world," Attewell adds.

Several streaming platforms are included with an ISP connection plan, such as Lightbox or Neon, whereas others are on a paid subscription basis, such as Netflix.

"The increasing use of data shows how much Kiwis have embraced these services, which have only recently been introduced," Attewell says.

Attewell says the increase in data usage coincides with a large increase in the proportion of broadband connections that have no data cap. As at June 2015, 1 in 3 broadband connections had no data cap, compared with 1 in 12 in 2014.

"The increasing number of unlimited broadband connections goes hand-in-hand with the increasing amount of data people are using, and enables households to use as much data as they would like," he says.

The figures come from the 2015 annual Internet Service Provider Survey, which is sent to all internet service providers in New Zealand.