Executive Summary
The Mobile Network in 2015
- Global mobile data traffic grew 74 percent in 2015. Global mobile data traffic reached 3.7 exabytes per month at the end of 2015, up from 2.1 exabytes per month at the end of 2014.
- Mobile data traffic has grown 4,000-fold over the past 10 years and almost 400-million-fold over the past 15 years. Mobile networks carried fewer than 10 gigabytes per month in 2000, and less than 1 petabyte per month in 2005. (One exabyte is equivalent to one billion gigabytes, and one thousand petabytes.)
- Fourth-generation (4G) traffic exceeded third-generation (3G) traffic for the first time in 2015. Although 4G connections represented only 14 percent of mobile connections in 2015, they already account for 47 percent of mobile data traffic, while 3G connections represented 34 percent of mobile connections and 43 percent of the traffic. In 2015, a 4G connection generated six times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection.
- Mobile offload exceeded cellular traffic for the first time in 2015. Fifty-one percent of total mobile data traffic was offloaded onto the fixed network through Wi-Fi or femtocell in 2015. In total, 3.9 exabytes of mobile data traffic were offloaded onto the fixed network each month.
- More than half a billion (563 million) mobile devices and connections were added in 2015. Smartphones accounted for most of that growth. Global mobile devices and connections in 2015 grew to 7.9 billion, up from 7.3 billion in 2014.
- Globally, smart devices represented 36 percent of the total mobile devices and connections in 2015; they accounted for 89 percent of the mobile data traffic. (For the purposes of this study, “smart devices” refers to mobile connections that have advanced multimedia/computing capabilities with a minimum of 3G connectivity.) In 2015, on an average, a smart device generated 14 times more traffic than a nonsmart device.
- Mobile network (cellular) connection speeds grew 20 percent in 2015. Globally, the average mobile network downstream speed in 2015 was 2,026 kilobits per second (kbps), up from 1,683 kbps in 2014.
- Mobile video traffic accounted for 55 percent of total mobile data traffic in 2015. Mobile video traffic now accounts for more than half of all mobile data traffic.
- The top 1 percent of mobile data subscribers generated 7 percent of mobile data traffic, down from 18 percent in June 2014. According to a mobile data usage study conducted by Cisco, the top 20 percent of mobile users generated 59 percent of mobile data traffic, and the top 1 percent generated 7 percent.
- Average smartphone usage grew 43 percent in 2015. The average amount of traffic per smartphone in 2015 was 929 MB per month, up from 648 MB per month in 2014.
- Smartphones (including phablets) represented only 43 percent of total global handsets in use in 2015, but represented 97 percent of total global handset traffic. In 2015, the typical smartphone generated 41 times more mobile data traffic (929 MB per month) than the typical basic-feature cell phone (which generated only 23 MB per month of mobile data traffic).
- Globally, 97 million wearable devices (a sub-segment of the machine-to-machine [M2M] category) in 2015 generated 15 petabytes of monthly traffic.
- Per-user iOS mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) data usage marginally surpassed that of Android mobile devices data usage. By the end of 2015, average iOS consumption exceeded average Android consumption in North America and Western Europe.
- In 2015, 34 percent of mobile devices were potentially IPv6-capable. This estimate is based on network connection speed and OS capability.
- In 2015, the number of mobile-connected tablets increased 1.3-fold to 133 million, and each tablet generated 2.8 times more traffic than the average smartphone. In 2015, mobile data traffic per tablet was 2,576 MB per month, compared to 929 MB per month per smartphone.
- There were 125 million PCs on the mobile network in 2015, and each PC generated 2.9 times more traffic than the average smartphone. Mobile data traffic per PC was 2.7 GB per month in 2015.
- Average nonsmartphone usage increased to 23 MB per month in 2015, compared to 16 MB per month in 2014. Basic handsets still make up the vast majority of handsets on the network (57 percent).
The Mobile Network Through 2020
Mobile data traffic will reach the following milestones within the next 5 years:
● Monthly global mobile data traffic will be 30.6 exabytes by 2020.
● The number of mobile-connected devices per capita will reach 1.5 by 2020.
● The average global mobile connection speed will surpass 3 Mbps by 2017.
● The total number of smartphones (including phablets) will be nearly 50 percent of global devices and connections by 2020.
● Because of increased usage on smartphones, smartphones will cross four-fifths of mobile data traffic by 2020.
● Monthly mobile tablet traffic will surpass 2.0 exabytes per month by 2020.
● 4G connections will have the highest share (40.5 percent) of total mobile connections by 2020.
● 4G traffic will be more than half of the total mobile traffic by 2016.
● More traffic was offloaded from cellular networks (on to Wi-Fi) than remained on cellular networks in 2015.
● Three-fourths (75 percent) of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2020.
- Global mobile data traffic will increase nearly eightfold between 2015 and 2020. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53 percent from 2015 to 2020, reaching 30.6 exabytes per month by 2020.
- By 2020 there will be 1.5 mobile devices per capita. There will be 11.6 billion mobile-connected devices by 2020, including M2M modules—exceeding the world’s projected population at that time (7.8 billion).
- Mobile network connection speeds will increase more than threefold by 2020. The average mobile network connection speed (2.0 Mbps in 2015) will reach nearly 6.5 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2020. By 2017, the average mobile network connection speed will surpass 2.0 Mbps.
- By 2020, 4G will be 40.5 percent of connections, but 72 percent of total traffic. By 2020, a 4G connection will generate 3.3 times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection.
- By 2020, more than three-fifths of all devices connected to the mobile network will be “smart” devices. Globally, 67 percent of mobile devices will be smart devices by 2020, up from 36 percent in 2015. The vast majority of mobile data traffic (98 percent) will originate from these smart devices by 2020, up from 89 percent in 2015.
- By 2020, 66 percent of all global mobile devices could potentially be capable of connecting to an IPv6 mobile network. There will be 7.6 billion IPv6-capable devices by 2020.
- Three-fourths of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2020. Mobile video will increase 11-fold between 2015 and 2020, accounting for 75 percent of total mobile data traffic by the end of the forecast period.
- By 2020, mobile-connected tablets will generate nearly eight times more traffic than generated in 2015. The amount of mobile data traffic generated by tablets by 2020 (2.6 exabytes per month) will be 7.6 times higher than in 2015, a CAGR of 50 percent.
- The average smartphone will generate 4.4 GB of traffic per month by 2020, nearly a fivefold increase over the 2015 average of 929 MB per month. By 2020, aggregate smartphone traffic will be 8.8 times greater than it is today, with a CAGR of 54 percent.
