Cloud resurrects the video star

Cloud traffic is set to quadruple in Africa and the Middle East over the next four years. Content marketers will need to step up.

The fifth annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2014-2019) predicts that global cloud traffic is set to quadruple by the end of 2019. The report highlights that cloud is becoming mainstream, and the Middle East and African region is expected to see 41% growth by 2019.

One of the factors driving this growth is the rise of mobile devices and the associated cloud services among individual consumers. Whether you’re familiar with the term or not: you’re already using the cloud for all sorts of daily actions like checking your Gmail or listening to Apple Music. At its simplest, cloud just means using the internet to access your data or services rather than your computer’s hard drive.

‘South African enterprise and government organisations are moving from test cloud environments to trusting clouds with their mission-critical workloads. At the same time, consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem,’ said Vernon Thaver, CTO of Cisco South Africa.

Consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem.

The local launch of streaming video on demand services such as Naspers’ ShowMax and international Netflix is just the beginning. As cloud, and the quality and reliability of internet connectivity grows, content publishers are going to have to adapt.

Consumers are hungry for content – especially video. Cisco’s 2015 Visual Networking Index predicts that by 2019 more than 51% of the world’s population will be online; around 3.9 billion people. And watching videos will account for 80% of all internet traffic by 2019.

In South Africa, expect a compound annual growth rate of 53% in video traffic with video comprising 78% of all traffic in 2019.

2019: Key stats from the Cisco Global Cloud Index

  • 144 trillion hours of streaming music – equivalent to about 26 months of continuous music streaming for the world’s population* in 2019
  • 26 trillion hours of business web conferencing with a webcam – equivalent to about 21 hours of daily web conferencing for the world’s workforce in 2019
  • 8 trillion of high-definition (HD) movies viewed online – equivalent to about 2.4 hours of daily streamed HD movies for the world’s population in 2019
  • 2 trillion hours of ultra-high definition (UHD) video streaming – equivalent to about 25 minutes of daily streamed UHD video for the world’s population in 2019

* The world’s projected population by 2019 will be 7.6 billion people (source: United Nations)

Originally published on New Media Storyboard.

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