Online video is the biggest driver of mobile traffic volume

According to the Mobility Report prepared by Ericsson, 25% of the total traffic generated by smartphones and 40% of the traffic generated by the use of tablets already comes from online video.

In the last year, the volume of data traffic circulating through mobile networks has doubled thanks to the widespread use of smartphones, which already account for 40% of the terminals sold worldwide in the third quarter. This is one of the conclusions of the Mobility Report prepared by Ericsson.

According to this study, one of the reasons for this significant increase in traffic is the rise of online video, which already accounts for 25% of the total traffic generated by smartphones and 40% of the traffic generated by the use of tablets.

This highlights the new demands on networks to respond to requests with the desired quality anywhere and anytime.

The report reveals that the total number of mobile users will reach 6.6 billion by the end of the year and 9.3 billion in 2018. However, this data does not include users of machine to machine (M2M) devices.

Ericsson estimates that global mobile penetration reached 91% in the third quarter of this year, with mobile phone users exceeding 6.4 billion worldwide.

Specifically, China accounts for around 35% of new additions in the last quarter, with about 40 million more users. This is followed by Brazil, with 9 million, Indonesia with 7 million and the Philippines with 5 million.

Fourth generation

Regarding fourth generation networks, the Ericsson study estimates that LTE is now within the reach of 455 million people around the world. In five years, it is expected that more than half of the world's population will be able to benefit from the new networks.

LTE is the fastest developing system in the history of mobile communications in terms of buildout and absorption. Subscriptions to these networks will grow from around €55 million at the end of 2012 to 1.6 billion in 2018. WCDMA/HSPA networks, which currently provide coverage to more than half of the world's population, will continue to grow faster than LTE in terms of absolute numbers, with the addition of 65 million subscriptions in Q3 2012 compared to 13 million for LTE.