• by Ross Fadner , May 31, 2012

Nearly 800 million people consumed Web videos last year -- a total that will close to double in four years to 1.5 billion, according to networking services giant Cisco.

On an individual level, nearly all of those people will be consuming more video than they are today. Meanwhile, online video already accounts for more than half of all Internet traffic.

The data comes from the latest installation of Cisco’s annual Visual Networking Index, which claims that by 2016, worldwide data consumption will reach 1.3 zettabytes. One zettabye is equal to 1 billion terabytes.

According to the report, Web connected devices like tablets, phones, game consoles, and TV sets are driving the rampant surge in video consumption. Cisco claims that by 2016, HD streams to TV sets will grow sixfold, accounting for 6 percent of all worldwide consumer Web traffic. 

However, this will be dwarfed by the uptick in mobile video consumption on tablets and phones: according to the report, mobile video traffic will grow 18-fold between 2011-2016, while the number of worldwide mobile users will reach 1.6 billion -- an increase of six times over 2011.

The report also claims that close to one-third of all Web traffic will come from devices other than the PC by 2016.