Cisco Forecasts Highest Mobile Data Traffic Growth

*John T. Chambers, Cisco CEO

…..In Middle East & Africa

Worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold over the next five years, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month or an annual run rate of 130 exabytes by 2016. Middle East and Africa will have the highest regional mobile data traffic growth rate with a CAGR of 104 percent, or 36-fold growth. 

This is according to a Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2011 to 2016 just released.

The release showed that the expected sharp increase in mobile traffic is due, in part, to a projected surge in the number of mobile Internet-connected devices, which will exceed the number of people on earth  going by the 2016 world population estimate of 7.3 billion. Cisco anticipates that during 2011-2016, global mobile data traffic will outgrow global fixed data traffic by three times.

The forecast predicts an annual run rate of 130 exabytes of mobile data traffic, equivalent to: 33 billion DVDs; 4.3 quadrillion MP3 files (music/audio); and 813 quadrillion short message service (SMS) text messages.

An exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to 1quintillion bytes.

This mobile data traffic increase represents a compound

annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent spanning the forecast period. The incremental amount of traffic being added to the mobile Internet between 2015 and 2016 alone is approximately three times the estimated size of the entire mobile Internet in 2012.

More streamed content, more mobile connections, enhanced computing of devices, faster mobile speeds as well as more mobile video are said to be the trends driving these significant increases.

The Cisco study also projects that 71 percent of all smartphones and tablets (1.6 billion) could be capable of connecting to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) mobile networks by 2016. From a broader perspective, 39 percent of all global mobile devices (more than 4 billion), could be IPv6-capable by 2016.

Acting General Manager for Cisco in Nigeria, Said Rechchad noted: “By 2016, 60 percent of mobile users -3 billion people worldwide, will belong to the ‘Gigabyte Club,’ each generating more than one gigabyte of mobile data traffic per month. By contrast, in 2011, only one-half percent of mobile users qualified. This impressive growth in mobile traffic will be driven by more powerful devices, notably smartphones and tablets, using faster networks, such as 4G and Wi-Fi, to access more applications, particularly data-intensive video.”

John Bryne, a research director with IDC said “The Cisco Visual Networking Index provides an invaluable reference source as we model increased network usage and converts that usage into revenue projections. The ability of the Cisco VNI to provide growth projections across multiple sources such as mobile video and online gaming is particularly useful.”

The Cisco mobile VNI study relies upon independent analyst forecasts and real-world mobile data usage studies.