LTE to account for 40.5% of overall mobile connections by 2020
Mobile users are expected to reach 5.5 billion by 2020, representing 70% of the global population, according to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast.
According to the report, there were 4.8 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2015, representing 65% of the world’s population.
“The adoption of mobile devices, increased mobile coverage and demand for mobile content are driving user growth two times faster than the global population over the next five years. This surge of mobile users, smart devices, mobile video and 4G networks will increase mobile data traffic eight-fold over the next five years,” according to the report authors.
Cisco said the Asia-Pacific region will end 2020 with 3 billion mobile users, an increase from the 2.59 billion customers at the end of last year. North America ended 2015 with 302 million mobile users and is forecast to reach 322 million mobile users by 2020. Western Europe is expected to add 10 million mobile users during the 2015-2020 period to reach 378 million users, according to the report.
Smart mobile devices and connections are projected to represent 72% of total mobile devices and connections by 2020, climbing from 36% in 2015. Cisco also said smart devices are forecasted to generate 98% of mobile data traffic by 2020.
The study also showed “4G” connections will represent 40.5% of all mobile connections in 2020, up from 13.7% in 2015, while 3G connections will account for 38.7% of all mobile connections, up from 33.7% in 2015. By 2020, 4G connections will account for 72% of total mobile data traffic, up from 47% of total mobile data traffic in 2015.
According to Cisco, smartphones, laptops and tablets will drive about 92% of global mobile data traffic by 2020, down from 94% last year. Machine-to-machine traffic will represent 7% of global mobile data traffic by 2020.
