From Residential to Mobile Proxies: The Trends that Shaped The Proxy Scene In 2024

In a world where information stored in the cloud is more critical than ever as part of a rapid digital transformation, proxies continue to play an important role for companies looking to use big data to boost performance.

But how do you know which proxy providers are worth your attention, the trends shaping the scene, and how organisations can choose the most suitable proxy type for their needs? In 2024, we expect to see several key trends shaping the proxy industry, including the rise of AI integration, the increasing popularity of residential proxies, and the growing competition among proxy providers. Understanding these trends can help businesses and individuals make informed decisions about their proxy selection.

In addition, there are also a multitude of proxy providers out there, all serving their own customer base and vary significantly in user experience, price, and proxy quality. This means that without proper research, you may end up being misled by marketing promises or worse, getting a proxy service that isn't right for you.

For businesses to gain an understanding about the industry, Proxyway–a trusted community blog dedicated to the research of major proxy providers–has recently released its highly successful 'Proxy Market Research 2024'. This report is aimed at covering the latest proxy market trends, providing large-scale performance benchmarks, and comparing the leading proxy server providers.

This report also goes into detail its own assessment of the proxy's technical performance, proxy network size, features, user experience, IP quality, and price. Such measures are valuable for both enterprises and small businesses, providing insights based on actual tests rather than marketing claims.

Whether you're a consumer looking to compare proxies, a proxy vendor trying to improve your offering, or someone curious about the state of the industry and its evolution over time, this comprehensive report instil confidence in your decision-making for your digital transformation journey. The report also covers residential, mobile, and rotating datacenter proxies, and all were tested with popular targets like Amazon, Google, and a social media network.

What's New In The Proxy Scene This Year?

Despite the unfortunate layoffs of almost 260,000 tech workers last year, the proxy market has shown remarkable resilience. The providers Proxyway spoke to reported a successful year, with multi-digit revenue growth and a 19x rise in proxy use. This resilience is a testament to the enduring value of proxies in the digital landscape.

Most companies still view proxies as their primary offering and see them as essential to business. It is also worth noting that while major providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data are expanding every year, entry into the industry is relatively simple, partly because of permissive resale regulations. Most of the participants thought there is more competition now, especially among recent recruits.

In 2024, providers continue to construct their own traffic-sharing apps and VPNs to create their home proxy infrastructure. This concept refers to the providers' ability to build and manage their own proxy networks, which can offer greater control, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. However, it also requires significant investment and technical expertise.

Regarding pricing, major providers have slashed prices for residential and mobile proxies more than ten times since the beginning of 2023. This is mainly due to the price strategies of more recent competitors, so mobile proxy networks are beginning to lose their exclusivity. While it's natural to anticipate additional pricing changes, the current state of affairs seems like it could be more sustainable for proxy players due to technology trends and ongoing regulations on new applications for various global markets.

The price cuts have led to increased competition in the proxy market, making it more affordable for businesses and individuals to access proxy services. This, in turn, could lead to a more sustainable market environment for proxy providers.

And, of course, we cannot overlook the role of AI integration in technology innovations like proxies. In the report, half of the respondents have already experienced an impact from AI-related use cases, with Israeli enterprises leading the pack.

The integration of AI in proxy services has led to improved data quality, enhanced product offerings, and the introduction of third-party systems like chatbots. However, it also poses challenges such as the demand for high-quality data and the need for pre-scraped datasets and proxy-based products. Proxy providers are actively experimenting with AI-based scrapers, product improvements, and third-party systems to stay competitive.

Here Are The Key Proxy Players For 2024

As part of the report, Proxyway also launched its Proxy Service Awards 2024, which aimed at highlighting the best proxy providers, categorised based on enterprise usage, ideal platform, value, entry-level, and even being a newcomer.

When it comes to the most popular proxy type this year, residential proxies were selected by all respondents except one as their preferred IP type. One provider chose otherwise, and thinks that datacentre proxy servers are running out of time. Due to large providers' failure to fully utilise them, ISP and mobile proxies continue to be used in niche applications.

Smartproxy has won under the "Best Value Provider", with Proxy noting that the service combines mid-market rates, premium-grade performance, and newbie-friendly user experience. Its plans start only in single digits, but even then users can make use of Smartproxy's excellent customer service.

Meanwhile, Oxylabs and NetNut demonstrated exceptional performance in the mobile proxies category. However, the report notes that their main concerns are that their data shows a much lower number of carrier-bound IPs than the pool size would indicate and that NetNut's guarantee of mobile IPs conflicts with their data. Nonetheless, mobile proxies are considered the most effective proxy type for anonymity.

A newcomer has been also seen lately–Dataimpulse. Proxyway notes that this has a self-grown pool of proxies, small barriers to entry, and prices that wipe away all but the biggest objections. It has even launched two new proxy networks, both exerting the same price pressure on the competition.

Lastly, for datacentre proxies–particularly in terms of location coverage and breadth of features – Bright Data and Webshare stand out. Though it would be difficult for users to choose between the two, Webshare might be a better option due to its price. Primarily, cloud hosting providers' servers are connected to datacenter proxies.