Global mobile data traffic doubled from the third quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012 and is likely to continue to skyrocket thanks to consumers' love of video. According to the latest Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) Mobility report, video currently makes up 25 percent of all smartphone traffic on the network and 40 percent of tablet traffic.
The infrastructure company said it expects video will continue to cause data traffic on mobile networks to surge, estimating that it will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of around 50 percent between 2012 and 2018.
Other interesting tidbits in the biannual report include:
- Approximately 40 percent of all phones sold in the third quarter were smartphones.
- Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion this year and 9.3 billion in 2018. However, these figures do not include M2M subscriptions.
- China is the fastest growing mobile market, adding 40 million new subscribers in third quarter. Global wireless penetration now stands at 91 percent.
- An additional 13 million LTE subscriptions were added globally in third quarter, and Ericsson expects total LTE subscribers to reach 55 million by year-end 2012 and 1.6 billion by 2018.
For more:
- see this release
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