The new Ericsson Mobility Report (previously called the Ericsson Traffic and Market Report) says around 40% of all mobile phones sold worldwide in the past quarter were smartphones. Recent reports from ABI Research and IDC reached similar conclusions.
It also notes that mobile data traffic doubled between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012 and predicts a compound annual growth rate of around 50% for the next six years, which means there’d be 12-fold growth between 2012 and 2018.
Online video is currently the biggest contributor to mobile data traffic, responsible for 25%b of all smartphone traffic and 40% of tablet traffic.
Douglas Gilstrap, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy at Ericsson, said “Expectations of mobile-network quality have been elevated by the availability of smartphones and tablets that have changed the way we use the internet. Mobility is becoming an increasingly significant part of our daily lives; we always have devices within arm's reach, allowing us instant access to information, entertainment and social interaction.”
The total number of mobile subscriptions excluding M2M connections is expected to reach 6.6 billion by the end of this year and 9.3 billion by the end of 2018.
[Report]