▶️ Online Video Accounting for Half of Russia's Mobile Data Traffic
Russian users are increasingly consuming video content on the go. According to a joint study by MegaFon and Kinopoisk, online video generated 47% of all mobile internet traffic in the country in August 2026. On average, a single subscriber consumes around 20 GB of data per month on short clips, movies, and TV series.
The scope of the study encompassed not only traditional online streaming platforms but also user-generated content video hostings. Analysts note that by the end of the summer, the combined unique monthly audience of VK Video and Rutube was comparable to the aggregate reach of the major streaming platforms—Kinopoisk, Start, Wink, Premier, and Kion.
Kinopoisk’s statistics (covering the period from September 2023 to August 2026) challenge the stereotype that long-form video content on smartphones and tablets is viewed predominantly in the evening.
Roughly 39.5% of the service’s daily mobile audience among Yandex Plus subscribers tune in to videos between 06:00 and 12:00. By noon, the number of such viewers more than doubles, with the evening peak traditionally falling at 20:00 Moscow time.
The average duration of a morning session is 20.4 minutes—a timeframe sufficient for a sitcom episode, an anime installment, or part of a drama show. Furthermore, viewers watch nearly 47% of morning streams almost to completion. User activity is evenly distributed throughout the week: the gap between the most active day (Thursday) and the least active (Monday) is a mere 4%, with no distinct spikes observed over the weekend.
Interest in video formats is further corroborated by data from digital agency Future Lab: in the first half of 2026, the average daily video watch time per user in Russia grew by 6%, reaching 87.7 minutes. YouTube recorded the strongest growth, boosting its watch time by 24%.
For subscribers, this shift toward video translates into faster consumption of their data allowances. Experts emphasize that the actual volume of data consumed depends heavily on technical parameters—such as resolution, frame rate, bitrate, and the codec used (e.g., HEVC or AV1)—meaning data usage can vary significantly even within the same HD resolution.
Source: RG
