CDN Account Growth at 23.3 Percent, Says AccuStream
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are achieving another year of double-digit growth in 2009, writing new contracts at a 23.3 percent pace above 2008. According to an industry report by AccuStream Research entitled "CDN 2010: Revenue, R & D, Cap Ex and Operational Analytics," CDN revenue forecasts are up 16.4 percent to $1.37 billion across the segment.
The U.S. market currently generates an estimated 55.8 percent of the global CDN total, though international traffic is now increasing at a faster rate than in the United States.
In a year of steep bandwidth price declines at transit and retail provisioning levels, CDNs are managing margins by relentlessly driving down costs, focusing on network operations efficiencies even while pivoting toward the future: capex investment is forecast to rise 9.2 percent to $149 million in 2009.
R & D is targeting new and expanding business areas including whole site delivery, dynamic content, “live” video, high-definition (HD) video, mobile/iPhone, non-PC devices, adaptive bit rate streaming, and support for Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming solution.
Of the 22.5 billion professional video views served in 2009, Akamai delivered 31.9 percent, Limelight Networks 12 percent and Level 3 11.2 percent.
Additional CDNs analyzed in AccuStream’s research include CD Networks, Velocix, Liquid Compass, Abacast, Mirror Image, Edgecast Networks, Highwinds, BitGravity, Cotendo, and Internap, among others.
