Global streaming intelligence company NPAW has released its 1st Half 2025 report on the state of the streaming video industry, which includes some interesting trends. Ferran G. Vilaro, CEO & Co-Founder of NPAW said: "The first half of 2025 displayed some remarkable improvements in quality KPIs across the globe. With LATAM, the Middle East and North America showing the greatest gains, most regions have seen an upward shift in Buffer Ratio quality, Avg. Bitrate and Join Times. These are clear indicators of ongoing investment in infrastructure by OTTs, telco providers and broadcasters alike."
Key Takeaways from the report include:
- Global VoD engagement decreases compared to H1 2024 Both avg. Playtime per User and Titles per User per day showed slight dips when compared to last year H1.
- Global VoD quality is one the rise, in most KPIs Improvements in Avg. Bitrate, Join Time and Buffer Ratio (%) can be seen in almost all regions.
- Global VoD Device engagement dominated by TVs and STBs Q1 shows the greatest engagement rates, with the highest playtime per user across most devices.
- Linear TV Global Quality shows solid improvements Avg. Join Time, Buffer Ratio (%) and Avg. Bitrate all display major gains, with Join Times decreasing by -16% vs H1 2024
- Linear TV - Regional Engagement strongest in Europe The Middle East showed the greatest gains, with 13% uplift compared to H1 2024. Europe leads viewership with over 60 minutes per user per day.
- Linear TV device share dominated by TVs and STBs The top 2 device types account for more than 87% of viewership, showing the users prefer the large screen for lengthy viewing.
Vilaro add: "We notice the wider adoption of Smart TVs and Set Top Boxes as the devices of choice for viewers, especially when it comes to long format content. Quality metrics on these devices, by and large, are greatly improved over H1 2024. Again, on STBs and TVs, we see greater engagement than on other devices - 69% total for VoD, and an incredible 87% for LinearTV. The majority of viewers are choosing to consume content on the large screen."
The full report is available for download here: https://npaw.com/download/video-streaming-industry-report-report-h1-2025/
