Cisco Forecasts 14-Fold Increase in MEA Mobile Data Traffic in 5 Years

Cisco® Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2013 to 2018 indicates that worldwide mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold over the next four years and reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes by 2018.

However, Middle East and Africa are expected to witness 14-fold increase during the period.

The projected increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections, such as personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, which will exceed 10 billion by 2018 and be 1.4 times greater than the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion people by 2018).

In terms of mobile data traffic growth rates over the forecast period, the Middle East and Africa region is projected to have the highest regional growth rate.

By 2018, the Middle East and Africa will have a 70 percent CAGR and 14-fold growth while Central and Eastern Europe will have a 68 percent CAGR and 13-fold growth.

Asia-Pacific will have a 67 percent CAGR and 13-fold growth while Latin America will have a 66 percent CAGR and 13-fold growth.

North America will have a 50 percent CAGR and eight-fold growth; and Western Europe will have a 50 percent CAGR and seven-fold growth.

Mr. Dare Ogunlade, general manager, Cisco, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra-Leone said that “Global mobile data traffic will continue its truly remarkable growth, increasing nearly 11-fold over the next five years, to reach an amount in 2018 that is more than 57 times the total amount of mobile data traffic just a few years ago in 2010.

“Such growth is not only indicative of mobility becoming a critical characteristic of almost every network experience and the value consumers and businesses alike place on it, but it also represents the immense opportunities ahead for service providers who sit at the center of the Internet of Everything.”

In terms of mobile data traffic generation, the Asia-Pacific region is projected to generate the most mobile data traffic. Asia-Pacific: 6.72 exabytes per month; North America: 2.95 exabytes per month; Western Europe: 1.9 exabytes per month; Central and Eastern Europe: 1.64 exabytes per month; The Middle East and Africa: 1.49 exabytes per month; and Latin America: 1.16 exabytes per month.

Also, from 2013 to 2018, Cisco anticipates that global mobile traffic growth will outpace global fixed traffic growth by a factor of three.

The trends that are driving mobile data traffic growth include the increase in mobile users; there will be 4.9 billion mobile users, up from 4.1 billion in 2013.

In terms of mobile connections, there will be more than 10 billion mobile-ready devices/connections—including eight billion personal mobile devices and two billion M2M connections, up from seven billion total mobile-ready devices and M2M connections in 2013.

There will also be faster mobile speeds, as the average global mobile network speeds will nearly double from 1.4 Mbps in 2013 to 2.5 Mbps by 2018. Plus mobile video will represent 69 percent of global mobile data traffic, up from 53 percent in 2013.

Globally, 54 percent of mobile connections will be ‘smart’ connections by 2018, up from 21 percent in 2013. Smart devices and connections have advanced computing/multi-media capabilities and a minimum of 3G connectivity.

Smartphones, laptops, and tablets will drive about 94 percent of global mobile data traffic by 2018. M2M traffic will represent five percent of 2018 global mobile data traffic while basic handsets will account for 1 percent of global mobile data traffic by 2018. Other portables will account for 0.1 percent.

Mobile cloud traffic will grow 12-fold from 2013 to 2018, a 64 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

M2M refers to applications that enable wireless and wired systems to communicate with similar devices to support global positioning satellite (GPS) navigation systems, asset tracking, utility meters, security and surveillance video.

A new “wearable devices” sub-segment has been added to the M2M connections category to help project the growth trajectory of the Internet of Everything (IoE).

Wearable devices include things that are worn by people such as smart watches, smart glasses, health and fitness trackers, wearable scanners with capability to connect and communicate to the network either directly via embedded cellular connectivity or through another device such as a smartphone via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In 2013, M2M connections represented nearly five percent of mobile-connected devices in use and generated more than one percent of total mobile data traffic.

By 2018, M2M connections will represent nearly 20 percent of mobile-connected devices in use and generate almost 6 percent of total mobile data traffic.

Also in 2013, there were 21.7 million global wearable devices but by 2018, there will be 176.9 million global wearable devices or a 52 percent CAGR.

On impact of faster global mobile network connection speeds, Cisco said that, the average mobile connection is expected to nearly double from 2013 to 2018.

Mobile connection speeds are a key factor in supporting/accommodating mobile data traffic growth.