Article content

TORONTO — When Canadians jump on the Internet during prime-time evening hours it’s increasingly because they want to stream something on Netflix, suggests Waterloo, Ont.-based networking company Sandvine.

[np_storybar title=”Netflix plot thickens at the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV show” link=”http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/10/terence-corcoran-netflix-plot-thickens-at-the-crtcs-lets-talk-tv-show/”]Terence Corcoran: Chances are a radically new Canadian television model will not be coming to your TV anytime soon. Keep reading.

[/np_storybar]

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Netflix accounts for 30 to 40% of Internet downloading during prime-time hours in Canada: analysis Back to video

An analysis of downloading traffic during evenings in Canada found that 30 to 40% of the data consumed was usually linked to Netflix streams, which was higher than any other Internet activity.

On a typical evening, YouTube viewing, web browsing, Facebook usage and accessing content via BitTorrent were the other top ways Canadians chewed through megabytes and gigabytes.

Prime-time Netflix streaming has grown about threefold in recent years, Sandvine reported. Three years ago, Netflix accounted for just 13.5% of downloaded data during evening hours in Canada.

On mobile networks in Canada, social media drives the most downloading of data.

Over 25% of the data downloaded by Canadian mobile devices typically funnels through social networking apps. Facebook gets the most usage followed by Instagram and Twitter.

YouTube accounted for about 20% of downloading traffic on mobile devices.