What came first, the cloud business or live streaming? Live streaming and the cloud network are in a symbiotic relationship. One will not expand without the other growing. However, the increasing demand for video streaming has grown exponentially in the past five years while cloud business has reflected a more stable growth curve.

Live streaming content was once limited to the traditional television broadcast network. With the expansion of the cloud network, it is possible to stream video in a quality that is very close to traditional broadcast television. The increasing demand for live streaming will require the cloud business to expand at a rapid rate to meet this demand.

Video streaming on the internet takes up approximately 80% of the bandwidth of the cloud network today. Live streaming video requires even more bandwidth than standard, non-real time, streaming video.

Why does live streaming content require more bandwidth?

Live streaming requires more bandwidth due to a process called transcoding. The variety of screens consumers view content is increasing by the day, but different types of devices need different codecs for the streaming content to be optimized for each device.

The process of transcoding requires a lot of bandwidth on the cloud network. However, live streaming requires simultaneously capturing the video and transcoding the video to many different types of codecs. This process requires much more bandwidth than just transcoding pre-recorded content one codec at a time.

How much is live streaming projected to expand in the next five years?

The global video streaming market size is predicted to reach 124.57 billion by 2025. This projected growth is due to a few different factors.

The first is the growing adoption of smartphones and other media streaming devices globally. The second factor is the extensive range of high-speed Internet technologies such as 3G, 4G, and the new 5G, has resulted in increasing the growth of data consumption over the cloud network.

Finally, with so much content readily available on the internet, the most engaging form of content is video. As companies compete for consumer engagement, they will increase their video output.

Why is live streaming more popular than video streaming?

Live streaming is in higher demand compared to pre-recorded content with the younger generation. Generation Z is more engaged with exciting live content rather than pre-recorded content. Further, live video is more engaging to users because anything can happen — it’s exciting to witness video in real-time. 1 in 5 videos on Facebook are through Facebook Live and on average, watched 3x longer than pre-recorded content.

In an increasingly more digital world, the desire for authenticity and human connection has not escaped consumers. Heavily edited images and messaging have made consumers crave more organic experiences with content. Live streaming seems to be the answer to this void in the current consumer experience.

The cloud business will have to grow and expand to accommodate the inevitable growth of live streaming. While the cloud network came first to help the growth of the internet, increased live streaming is going to expand the internet and cloud business.