Projected 8 billion mobile devices by 2016 to exceed world population

MANILA, Philippines - In 2016 there will be more mobile devices in use than the actual number of people on earth.

This is according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2011 to 2016 which sees over eight billion mobile Internet-connected devices and additional two billion “machine-to-machine” (M2M) connections becoming available when the world’s population reaches 7.3 billion based on United Nations projection.

An offshoot of this would be a sharp surge in worldwide mobile data traffic reaching 10.8 exabytes per month – or an annual run rate of 130 exabytes – and eclipsing global fixed data traffic by three times, according to the study.

An exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillionbyte. In a more quantifiable term, Cisco offered 130 exabytes to be the equivalent of 33 billion DVDs, 4.3 quadrillion MP3 files (music/audio) and 813 quadrillion short message service (SMS) text messages.

The mobile data traffic increase during the forecast period represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent and the incremental amount of traffic being added to the mobile Internet between 2015 and 2016 alone is approximately three times the estimated size of the entire mobile Internet in 2012, the study showed.

Demand for mobile cloud services will also grow by 28-fold during the forecast period as more consumers require on-demand or streamed content versus downloaded content.

The report showed tablet computers as the platform that will generate the most data traffic, growing 62-fold during the six-year period. This is the highest growth rate of any device category tracked in the forecast which also indicated that the amount of mobile data traffic to be generated by tablets in 2016 (one exabyte per month) will be four times the total amount of monthly global mobile data traffic in 2010 (237 petabytes per month).

Of the total projected mobile data traffic, 71 percent will be for mobile video, the report said.

What could make or break these projections is the speed of mobile networks. Cisco projects mobile speeds (including 2G, 3G and 4G networks) to increase nine-fold from 2011 to 2016. The study noted that the average mobile connection speed doubled last year.

The Cisco study also projects that 71 percent of all smartphones and tablets (1.6 billion) could be capable of connecting to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) mobile network by 2016. From a broader perspective, 39 percent of all global mobile devices (more than four billion) could be IPv6-capable by 2016.

Furthermore, smartphones, laptops and other portable devices are seen driving about 90 percent of the global mobile data traffic by 2016. M2Ms will represent five percent of 2016 global mobile data traffic while residential broadband mobile gateways will account for the remaining five percent of global mobile data traffic.

In terms of regional markets, the Middle East and Africa are seen having the highest mobile data traffic growth rate with a CAGR of 104 percent, or a 36-fold growth.

Next is the Asia-Pacific with an 84 percent CAGR, or 21-fold growth, while North America and Western Europe are projected to have a 75 percent CAGR (17-fold growth) and 68 percent CAGR (14-fold growth), respectively.