Smart Phones Drive Mobile Data Consumption, Globally

In 2012, global mobile data traffic grew more than 70 percent year over year, to 855 petabytes a month, according to Cisco.

Mobile data traffic growth varied by region, with the slowest growth experienced by Western Europe at 44 percent, and the highest growth rates experienced by Middle East and Africa (101 percent) and Asia Pacific (95 percent).



There are three key reasons for the lower mobile data traffic growth in Europe in 2012, Cisco says. Tiered mobile data packages are one reason, as most “unlimited” plans have been eliminated.

In Europe, there also has been a slowdown in the number of mobile-connected laptop net additions. The number of mobile-connected  laptops in Europe declined from 33.8 million at the end of 2011 to 32.6 million at the end of 2012.

Per Device Usage, MByes per Month

Device Type	2012	2017
Non smart phone	6.8	31
M2M Module	64	330
Smart phone	342	2,660
4G Smart phone	1,302	5,114
Tablet	820	5,387
Laptop	2,503	5,731

In Europe, there also has been an increase in the amount of mobile traffic offloaded to the fixed network. Operators have encouraged the offload of traffic onto Wi-Fi networks. Tablet traffic
that might have migrated to mobile networks has largely remained on fixed networks, as well.

By 2017, global mobile data traffic will reach 11.2 exabytes per month, or a run rate of 134 exabytes annually.

Smart phones will be 68 percent of total mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 44 percent in 2012. LTE 4G connections will be 10 percent of total mobile connections in 2017, and 45 percent of mobile data  traffic.


Global mobile network connection speeds doubled in 2012 and will increase seven fold by 2017, reaching 3.9 Mbps.

As much as 46 percent of global mobile data traffic will be offloaded in 2017, up from 33 percent in 2012, Cisco forecasts.

By 2017, 66 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video, up from 51 percent in 2012.

The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region at 104 percent compound annual growth rates, followed by Asia Pacific at 84 percent and Central and Eastern Europe at 83 percent.