There will be more than 26 billion connected devices by 2020, a new report by Ericsson revealed. Around 70 percent of the world’s population will be using smartphones by 2020, with 90 percent covered by mobile broadband networks.
Smartphone subscriptions will more than double to 6.1 billion by 2020, with the vast majority (almost 80%) of the new subscriptions coming from Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
By 2020, 80 percent of all mobile data traffic will come from smartphones. North America and Europe will continue to have highest data usage per smartphone. Smartphone data is predicted to increase ten-fold by 2020, when 80 percent of all mobile data traffic will come from smartphones. Average monthly data usage per smartphone in North America will increase to 14 GB from 2.4 GB by 2020.
Meanwhile, video traffic will soar 55 percent per year until 2020, driven by video streaming services and increasing prevalence of video in online content. It will make up around 60 percent of all mobile data traffic by the end of that period. Growth will be largely driven by shifting user preferences towards video streaming services, and the increasing prevalence of video in online content including news, advertisements and social media.
When looking at data consumption in advanced mobile broadband markets, findings show a significant proportion of traffic is generated by a limited number of subscribers. These heavy data users represent 10 percent of total subscribers but generate 55 percent of total data traffic. Video is dominant among heavy users, who typically watch around one hour of video per day, which is 20 times more than the average user.
