SAN JOSE, CA – Worldwide mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold over the next four years due to increases in mobile users, mobile connections, faster mobile speeds and more mobile video, predicts a new report from Cisco.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2013 to 2018, mobile Internet connections, such as personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, will exceed 10 billion by 2018 and be 1.4 times greater than the world’s population (the United Nations estimates 7.6 billion people by 2018).
In Canada, mobile data traffic is projected to grow 9-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54%, and reach an annual run rate of 3 Exabytes by 2018. (Note: an exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes or one billion gigabytes.)
Other Canadian highlights from the report include:
– In 2013, Canada's mobile data traffic grew 2.0-fold, or 99%;
– Canada had 25,612,858 mobile users in 2013, up 3% from 24,775,783 in 2012. That number is expected to reach 28,921,964 by 2018, a CAGR of 2.5%;
– 91% of Canadian mobile users will be mobile Internet users by 2018, up from 63% in 2013;
– Canada's consumer mobile data traffic grew 2.-fold, or 105% in 2013, while business mobile data traffic grew 1.8-fold, or 77%;
– Video will be 54% of Canada's mobile data traffic by 2018, compared to 51% at the end of 2013, and streaming audio will be 19% of Canada's mobile data traffic by 2018, compared to 13% at the end of 2013;
– Filesharing will be 6% of Canada's mobile data traffic by 2018, compared to 5% at the end of 2013, and web and other data (excluding M2M) will be 14% of Canada's mobile data traffic by 2018, compared to 30% at the end of 2013;
– In Canada, cloud applications will account for 85% of total mobile data traffic by 2018, compared to 80% at the end of 2013;
– The average mobile connection speed in Canada was 2,607 kbps in 2013 which will grow 2-fold (12% CAGR) from 2013 to 2018, reaching 4,573 kbps by 2018;
– M2M traffic in Canada will grow 66-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 131%;
– The number of mobile-connected M2M modules grew 2.1-fold or 111% in 2013, reaching 3 million. That will grow 7.7-fold between 2013 and 2018, reaching 24 million in number.
