• by Wayne Friedman , August 12, 2021

Worldwide TV streaming usage -- on all devices -- was up 13% in the second quarter, according to a recent study from Conviva.

This comes after soaring second-quarter gains in 2020, due to the pandemic.

Top three regions in 2021: South America, up 192%; Africa, adding 79%; and Asia, growing 43%. Farther down the list: Europe, 19% higher, while North America, inched up 2%.

Overall worldwide growth has been climbing more quickly in June, the last month of the second quarter. For example, North America was up 14% versus the same month in 2020.

Looking at specific streaming global device use, there was a 46% rise for smart TVs; mobile, up 30%; desktops, adding 15%; tablets, adding 9%; and connected TV was up 5%. At the same time, streaming on gaming consoles was down 14%.

Key metric for devices is the minutes per individual play.

Connected TV devices did the best -- 27.6 minutes. Smart TV and gaming consoles now average 26.3 minutes each; tablets are at 15.8 minutes; and desktop, 15.6 minutes. Overall, average video streaming time per device -- now 20.2 minutes.

Conviva says as for streaming platforms, Roku still leads with a 31% global share of big screen viewing time -- though declining a tick from 32% in the second-quarter 2020.

Amazon Fire TV maintains second place behind Roku -- now at a 18% share, which is down from 20% a year ago. Those platforms increasing share were smart TV-only devices: Samsung (now at 12%), LG (6%), Android TV (5%), and Vizio, (3%).

The research also says advertising quality has been improving on streaming. For example, 16% of streaming ads “went unfilled or failed to play as expected.” This is down from the 37% failure rate in the first quarter of this year.

YouTube consumption keeps rising for connected TV and gaming console -- now nearly two times that of YouTube viewing time on mobile and tablet devices.

Conviva data comes from 3.3 billion streaming video apps, measuring more than 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year and nearly two trillion real-time transactions across 180 countries.