IT and Society: Mobile data traffic to grow 10-fold by 2016

The analytical report from Ericsson reads that in 2016 mobile data traffic in the world will grow from about 500 up to 4700 PetaBytes (10¹⁵), that means that it will increase 10-fold by 2016.

According to the report, mobile broadband subscriptions will reach almost 5 billion in 2016, up from the expected 900 million by the end of 2011. That would represent 60 percent year-on-year growth, mainly driven by video content.

Analytics are sure that by 2016 users living in the area occupying less than 1 percent of the Earth's total land area will generate around 60 percent of total mobile traffic. And the most traffic share will be generated by laptops and tablets. 

Ericsson estimates that penetration of smartphones in Russia makes up over 20% and in the upcoming four or five years it will triple. Ericsson expects traffic generated by advanced smartphones to increase 12-fold to roughly equal mobile PC-generated traffic by 2016.