By the year 2020, some 90% of all people on Earth older than six will have a mobile phone and 6.1 billion will have a smartphone subscription, according to projections released in mobile giant Ericsson’s biannual mobility report.
The Ericsson Mobility Report, released Nov. 18, is based on data gathered from more than 100 global communications networks.
Patrik Cerwall, executive editor of the Mobility Report, explained that the global number of mobile subscriptions increased to 6.9 billion this year.
“This has gone up at a steady pace of around 6% year-over-year growth,” he said.
Cerwall detailed that 110 million new subscriptions were added in the fourth quarter of 2014, primarily from India, Africa and the Pacific region.
In the U.S, 4 million new subscriptions were added in Q4, many for a second or third device.
“What we can see,” Cerwall said, “is that by 2020, 90% of the world’s population will have a phone. I think that is astonishing. It really talks about the connected world where everyone will have a connection in one way or another.”
“This change of society when everyone is connected … you can make more informed decisions. We as citizens become smarter and are actually doing more interactions in society,” he said.
Cerwall discussed how video content delivered to mobile devices — smartphones, tablets, laptops — is a huge driver of data traffic demands around the world, estimating global data traffic use at 25 exabytes per month.
“An Exabyte is a huge number. It’s very hard to comprehend. If you were to download “Toy Story” 1 billion times, then that would be three exabytes.”
“Video is driving this. Maybe it is “Toy Story.” We are using a lot more video. It goes from being 45% of all the data traffic to 55% by 2020. It is also very clear that it depends upon your network connection. If you have better performance, you will use data more, you will use video more. The faster the network is, the more we tend to use video.”
Cerwall said that today about 20% of the world population has access to 4G LTE networks. By 2020, he projects that 4G LTE coverage to extend to 70% of people.
He said he looks forward to 5G connectivity ramping up in 2020.
“As we move toward a networked society, 5G is all about embracing that. It will come with a lot of new capabilities.”
Click here for more on the Ericsson Mobility Report.
