Social networking is the most popular mobile application category, with 40 per cent of mobile subscribers engaging daily, a report said.

In the Middle East, 62 per cent of social networking data can be attributed to video and 27.4 per cent to images in the Middle East, added the Mobile Analytics Report for the second half of 2014 released by Citrix, a leader in virtualization, mobility management, networking and cloud infrastructure.

The report provides insight into subscriber behaviour and related factors that determine quality of experience (QoE) for mobile data services in the Middle East.

Citrix found that LTE networks are 1.5 times more likely to watch video than subscribers on 3G networks. In the Middle East, Google video is the most popular video site by volume (51.27 per cent), followed by Facebook with 16.05 per cent and YouTube with 13.92 per cent.

The contribution of social networking video to total social networking mobile network data volume is much higher in the Middle East (62 per cent) and North America (59 per cent) than it is in Europe (39 per cent) and Asia Pacific (35 per cent), the report said.

On a given day, half of mobile data subscribers are served ads over the mobile network and the mix of ad types is changing rapidly, according to the report.

The latest report finds that there has been a 20 per cent increase in mobile video ads since the beginning of 2014, and data volume associated with ads are responsible for 2.2 per cent of daily mobile network traffic volume on Android-based devices and 17 per cent on IOS-based devices; almost unchanged figures from 2013.

While the change lies in the number of ad banners served over mobile, Citrix found that one video ad was served for every 20 banner ads served over mobile. This year, the ratio has increased to one video ad for every 16 banner ads served.

“Providing network operators with insight into the types and volumes of content mobile subscribers are consuming helps them to identify trends in subscriber behaviour and to adjust their networks accordingly,” said Johnny Karam, regional vice president, Middle East and Africa at Citrix.

“The mobile data experience continues to be a key contributor to subscriber satisfaction or lack thereof. Knowledge about how the network is being used combined with the tools to enhance the mobile data experience are fundamental to establishing a differentiated data service,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service