Ericsson issued a new Traffic and Market Data report based on measurements it conducts with major carriers worldwide.
Some key findings:
- Total smartphone traffic will triple in 2011.
- Global mobile penetration is now at 82 percent.
- The total number of mobile subscriptions worldwide is at around 5.8 billion.
- Around 75 percent of subscriptions are GSM. 14 percent are WCDMA/HSPA.
- Mobile data surpassed voice in Q4 2009 and doubled voice in Q1 2011.
- Mobile data traffic is expected to grow by nearly 60 percent per year between 2011 and 2016, mainly driven by video.
- By 2016, Ericsson predicts LTE will have roughly the same population coverage as WCDMA/HSPA had in 2010, which is around 35 percent. The company expects WCDMA/HSPA will remain the leading mobile access technology for many years to come.
- Ericsson expects traffic generated by advanced smartphones to increase 12-fold to roughly equal mobile PC-generated traffic by 2016.
- Mobile broadband subscriptions will reach almost 5 billion, up from the expected 900 million by the end of 2011.
- Almost 40 percent of smartphone owners globally use the internet before getting out of bed.
The full 24-page report is posted online.
http://www.ericsson.comhttp://hugin.info/1061/R/1561267/483187.pdf