Kuala Lumpur, Nov 12 – Communications technology and service provider, Ericsson, has predicted smartphone traffic to increase 10 times between 2013 and 2019.
This will contribute to 5.6 billion smartphone subscriptions by 2019.
Douglas Gilstrap, Ericsson Head of Strategy and Senior Vice President said the rapid pace of smartphone uptake had been phenomenal, and was set to continue.
“It took more than five years to reach the first billion smartphone subscriptions, but will take less than two, to hit the two billion mark.
“Interestingly, this trend will be driven by an uptake in China and other emerging markets, as lower-priced smartphone models become available,” he added, in a statement on the Ericsson Mobility Report.
The company said that mobile data traffic is expected to achieve 9.3 billion subscriptions and reach 10 exabytes, driven by video, which was growing at 55 per cent annually and represents more than 50 per cent of the data mobile traffic.
By 2019, social networking and web services are expected to contribute about 10 per cent each.
Currently, smartphones represent between 25 to 30 per cent of all mobile phone subscriptions, and account for a majority of mobile phones sold in the third quarter.
The report also said that in 2019, 90 per cent of world’s population is predicted to be covered by Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) or High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) networks, and 65 per cent by Fourth Generation (4G) or Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks.
–Bernama
