Ericsson Mobility Report reveals an almost 300-fold increase in mobile data traffic since 2011, 5.5 billion additional smartphone users
10-year anniversary
The Ericsson Mobility Report November 2021 highlights an almost-300 fold increase in mobile data traffic since 2011, when the first report of its kind was published. Marking the ten years, the latest edition looks back at key trends from the last ten years and forecasts toward 2027.
Massive growth
Some of the highlights from Ericsson Mobility Report include:
The belief that 5G will become the fast deployed mobile generation to date has been enhanced with close to 660 million 5G subscribers by the end of the year.
5G is expected to account for around 50 percent of all mobile subscriptions worldwide – covering 75 percent of the world’s population and carrying 62 percent of the global smartphone traffic by 2027.
4G LTE networks have generated 5.5 billion new smartphone connections worldwide, contributing to the market availability of more than 20,000 different 4G device models.
Mobile network data traffic was up 42 percent, year-on-year, in Q3 2021 accounting for approximately 78 exabytes (EB), including traffic generated by Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. In Q3 alone, mobile data traffic was more than all mobile traffic ever generated up until the end of 2016. New forecasts reveal that total mobile network data traffic is likely to reach 370EB by the end of 2027.
Mobile connections are changing rapidly. Broadband IoT has now surpassed 2G/3G as the segment that connects the largest share of IoT applications. It is expected to account for 47 percent of all cellular IoT connections by the end of 2021. This continues the rapid growth forecast in 2019‘s Ericsson Mobility Report.
New forecasts highlight the rapid acceleration of massive IoT deployments in coming years, spanning use cases such as e-health wearables, logistical asset tracking, environmental monitoring and smart meters and more.
FWA connections are forecast to grow almost threefold – from 88 million by the end of 2021, to around 230 million in 2027. Almost half of these connections are expected to be carried over 5G networks.
