Cisco’s Global Mobile Data Traffic Predictions Update, 2012–2017

Yesterday, Cisco (the computer-networking giant), released an update report of its forecast of the global mobile data traffic over the next 5 years (2012 – 2017). The report features some astounding statistics and predictions of mobile data traffic, and as expected, mobile growth is not showing any signs of slowing down whatsoever.

One thing that came to my surprise is that, during 2012 a 4G connection generated about 19 times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection. Interestingly enough, 4G connections only represent 0.9 % of mobile connections today, and already account for 14 % of mobile data traffic. That’s very remarkable, given that 4G is still not widely adopted in most countries in the world.

 

Moreover, worldwide mobile data traffic will increase immensely between 2012 and 2017 and Africa is where the most of the growth will be expected to take place, as the report points out that, Africa and The Middle East will have the most mobile data traffic growth at 77% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

According to Cisco, here is what will take place with respect to mobile traffic within the next 5 years.

• Monthly global mobile data traffic will surpass 10 exabytes in 2017.

• The number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world’s population in 2013.

• The average mobile connection speed will surpass 1 Mbps in 2014.

• Due to increased usage on smartphones, handsets will exceed 50 percent of mobile data traffic in 2013.

• Monthly mobile tablet traffic will surpass 1 exabyte per month in 2017.

• Tablets will exceed 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2015.

The predictions in the report reaffirms (yet again) that mobile is the future lest you still have any doubt. For a much more comprehensive outlook, you can download the report here for free.