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Kiwis trade piracy for online paid content

Kiwis are trading in piracy for paid on-line streamed content, signalling the impact on-demand entertainment has in the internet domain.

This analysis comes from statistics gathered from the CallPlus network, which includes Slingshot, Orcon and Flip, and represents 15% per cent of New Zealand’s telco market.

Slingshot General Manager Taryn Hamilton says, in a press release, the rise of paid streaming content is one of the most interesting trends arising. This directly corresponds with the decrease in peer-to-peer file sharing on the CallPlus network. 

“Our statistics show that BitTorent traffic is dropping at the same rate that paid streaming is increasing, which gives an indication that people are trading piracy for paid streaming. 

“That’s great news because one of the main reasons we opened up Global Mode last year was to give New Zealanders access to the same content people overseas had.” 

He predicts that the number of streaming video services will rise dramatically after Netflix’s New Zealand launch in March.   Spark’s streaming product is Lightbox while Sky will be offering its version Neon, later this year. Others offering on-demand viewing in the marker are Quickflix and Video Ezy.

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Other Slingshot statistics Slingshot shared included:

  • A quarter of kiwi internet traffic goes to Google and YouTube, with both websites coming out on top along with Facebook and Trade Me 
  • Netflix, BBC’s iPlayer, live gaming website twitch.tv-live, and other streaming TV services are gaining popularity.
  • The number of new customers choosing an unlimited plan doubled last year.
  • While unlimited customers are still a minority, they use a large portion of overall bandwidth.
  • An average unlimited fibre user consumed eight times the bandwidth of an average copper data-cap customer.
  • Last year, the average data consumption per household increased 40% and this is certain to increase further in 2015.
  • More kiwis are importing goods direct from China, with aliexpress.com breaking into the top 25 most popular websites list.? Sites such as aliexpress, along with dx.com and dhgate.com, have increased in popularity because they offer free international shipping to New Zealand. 

Meanwhile, Hamilton’s predictions for 2015 include:  

  • The arrival of 4K streaming, although it will remain niche and there will be no need to ditch copper just yet.
  • Streaming services will result in a much higher percentage of traffic served from within New Zealand due to local content delivery networks.
  • Dunedin will average the highest data consumption per household thanks to Gigatown.

One of the talented Idealog Team Content Producers made this post happen.

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