Mobile Data Consumption Will Grow 10 Times, Service Provider Revenue 2 Times, by 2016

Global mobile data traffic will grow from 3.89 trillion megabytes in 2011 to 39.75 trillion megabytes in 2016, amounting to a ten-fold increase, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

In contrast, global mobile data revenues will grow from $325.8 billion in 2011 to $627.5 billion in 2016, amounting to a two-fold increase.

That is one key reason why service providers are moving away from “unlimited” usage plans. The growth in traffic will far outstrip the growth in revenues.

Mobile phone users will, in 2016, on average consume 6.5 times as much video, over eight times as much music and social media, and nearly 10 times as much games as in 2011 according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

And although the revenue pie will grow, the share earned by mobile operators will shrink. If you exclude simple access and text messaging, the percentage of revenue earned by mobile service providers from content or commerce operations will drop from 56 percent in 2011 to 41 percent in 2016, Informa Telecoms & Media argues.

In 2016, the average mobile user also will be browsing six times as many web pages and downloading 14 times as many megabytes of applications on their handset as in 2011.

Text (SMS) and picture (MMS) messaging traffic will continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than most other mobile data services. On average, mobile users sent 118 text messages and two multimedia messages a month in 2011, compared to the 146 text messages and four multimedia messages  in 2016.

But usage of over the top messaging services, namely instant messaging and email, will see higher growth. Compared to the global monthly average of 31 mobile instant messages sent in 2011, users will be sending 118 in 2016.

The services that put the greatest strain on mobile networks also won’t be the apps and services that bring the most revenue for mobile service providers, Informa says.

“The top three data guzzlers on mobile phones over the next five years will be applications, video streaming and web browsing, in that order of importance,” says Guillermo Escofet, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. “Yet, the top revenue earners in 2016 will be web browsing first, followed by P2P SMS and applications.”

Video streaming will represent less than one percent of mobile data revenue in 2016, despite representing a third of handset traffic, he argues.