Ericsson: Global smartphone users will reach 4.5 billion by the end of 2018, and mobile data traffic will increase 12 times

Video data traffic will be the main driver of mobile traffic by 2018. According to the new Ericsson Mobility Report, mobile data traffic is expected to grow 12 times by the end of 2018. The report points out that video data traffic is now growing by 60% per year and will continue to drive mobile data traffic growth until 2018. The report also points out that the development of data use is affected by the continuous increase in content volume on the one hand, and the continuous improvement of network transmission speeds on the other hand, thanks to the development of HSPA and LTE.

(Translated from: June 4, 2013 [USA] cbronline.com Compiled by: Xie Runchao, International Economic and Technical Cooperation Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology)

Douglas Gilstrap, Ericsson senior vice president and head of strategy, said that by 2018, LTE services will cover 60% of the world's population. Gilstrap said: "As the demand for mobile devices and intensive data services continues to grow, we expect LTE users to exceed 1 billion in 2017. By then, network speeds will increase significantly and user experience will continue to improve, mainly due to the deployment of WCDMA/HSPA."

According to the report, on some networks, the average video consumption per user per month can reach 2.6GB. In addition, some users said they spend an average of 85 minutes per day browsing social networks. In the first quarter of this year, smartphones accounted for more than half of mobile phone sales, compared with 40% in 2012.

In the first quarter of 2013, the total number of mobile users worldwide increased by 8% year-on-year. Among them, WCDMA/HSPA added about 60 million new users, GSM/EDGE added about 30 million new users, and LTE added about 20 million new users. The number of mobile broadband users in the same period reached 1.7 billion. The number of smartphone users worldwide reached 1.2 billion in 2012, and it is expected that this number will increase to 4.5 billion in 2018.