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Ericsson Mobility Report Shows Rapid Smartphone Uptake and Doubling of Mobile data Traffic

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PCQ Bureau
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Mobile data traffic doubled between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012, and is expected to grow 12 times between 2012 and 2018, driven mainly by video

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· Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion in 2012 and 9.3 billion in 2018

· There were an additional 13 million LTE subscriptions in Q3 2012, and numbers are predicted to reach 1.6 billion by 2018

· Asia Pacific had the largest share of the total traffic in 2012

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The latest Ericsson Mobility Report, formerly known as the Ericsson Traffic and Market Report, reveals that approximately 40 percent of all phones sold in Q3 were smartphones. Data traffic doubled between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 50 percent between 2012 and 2018, driven mainly by video.

Ericsson's research shows that online video is the biggest contributor to mobile traffic volumes, constituting 25 percent of total smartphone traffic and 40 percent of total tablet traffic. This puts new requirements on networks to cater for quality anywhere and anytime.

Douglas Gilstrap, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy at Ericsson, says: “Expectations of mobile-network quality have been elevated by the availability of smartphones and tablets that have changed the way we use the internet. Mobility is becoming an increasingly significant part of our daily lives; we always have devices within arm's reach, allowing us instant access to information, entertainment and social interaction.”

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Total mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 6.6 billion by the end of 2012 and 9.3 billion by the end of 2018. These figures do not include machine-to-machine (M2M) subscriptions. China alone accounted for about 35 percent of net additions during Q3, with about 40 million additional subscriptions. Brazil (9 million), Indonesia (7 million), and the Philippines (5 million) followed in terms of net additions. Overall, global mobile penetration reached 91 percent in Q3 2012, and mobile subscriptions now total around 6.4 billion. Mobile subscriptions have grown by around 9 percent year-on-year and 2 percent quarter-on-quarter.

The report further reveals that Asia Pacific (which includes India) had the largest share of the total traffic in 2012. The region is expected to increase its share of data volume from around one third today to almost 40 percent in 2018.

Fredrik Jejdling, Head of Region, Ericsson India said “3G and mobility are addictive; in India the entire premise of mobile broadband is very strong. The traffic in networks is growing and this will be driven by new subscribers. APAC represents a large share of the global population. It is therefore interesting to study this region's current and forecasted build-out. The WCDMA/HSPA population coverage is higher in APAC than the global average. It is estimated that by 2017, 90 percent of the population will be covered by WCDMA/HSPA networks.”

By mid-2012, LTE coverage was provided for an estimated 455 million people globally. Within five years, more than half the world's population is expected to benefit from to LTE coverage.

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