I read some predictions this morning that really opened my mind to the possibility of mobile, and the most significant was that 2/3 of mobile traffic would be consumed by video. Here’s the predictions:
A prediction for the future of smartphone growth makes some bold projections:
By the end of this year, there could be more smartphones on the planet than humans, and by 2016 there could be 10 billion smartphones. That’s 1.4 mobile devices per capita.
In its global mobile data traffic forecast, Cisco predicts that a solid chunk of growth will come from the Middle East and Africa, with a compound annual growth rate of 104%, followed by Asia Pacific with 84% growth.
What will people be doing with their smartphones in the coming years? Cisco predicts that by 2016 two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be from videos, increasing 25-fold between now and then. [1] source
I knew YouTube had grown to the second largest search engine in the world, surpassing Bing, Yahoo and Facebook, but these numbers are staggering.
Cisco’s prediction includes more than just smartphones, though. It also takes into account tablets, laptops, handheld gaming consoles, e-readers, in-car entertainment systems, digital photo frames, cameras, and machine-to-machine modules.
Cisco believes all of these gadgets combined will put the total number of mobile-connected devices over 10 billion by 2016. This expected 18-fold growth by 2016 is certainly believable, given that in 2011 global mobile data traffic doubled for the fourth year in a row. [2] source
App developers have to be loving these predictions.
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