Ericsson has released the Ericsson Mobility Report 2013. According to the report, mobile data traffic will continue to grow significantly over the next few years. Globally, overall data traffic is expected to grow 12-fold by end-2018.
Availability of relevant content and improved network speeds with the launch of high speed packet access (HSPA) and long term evolution (LTE) networks is driving higher data usage.
Meanwhile, the global smartphone user base is expected to increase from 1.2 billion in 2012 to 4.5 billion by end-2018. As per the report, in the first quarter of 2013, smartphones accounted for about half of all mobile phone sales, compared to 40 per cent of total sales of in 2012. At the end of the first quarter of 2013, the total number of mobile subscriptions registered a year-on-year growth of 8 per cent.
Commenting on the report, Douglas Gilstrap, senior vice president and head, strategy, Ericsson, says, “LTE services will be available to 60 per cent of the world’s population in 2018. We expect LTE subscriptions to reach over 1 billion users in 2017. The growth in LTE services will be driven by more capable devices and demand for data-intensive services such as video. Owing to the build out of WCDMA/HSPA, network speeds have improved, and so has the user experience.”
To read the complete report, click here
