Ericsson: mobile video data to explode in next five years

Accumulated mobile data traffic for video will climb dramatically from 50 ExaBytes for the period 2010-15 to an estimated 1,000 ExaBytes between 2016 and 2021, according to Ericsson.

In the Mobile World Congress edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, the company said that in 2015 alone, net-added mobile data traffic was 20 ExaBytes, half of which consisted of video traffic.

“The additional video traffic in 2015 is comparable to approximately three full length movies per smartphone subscription,” said Ericsson.

According to the report, key drivers of mobile video traffic included uptake of video on-demand services like HBO and Netflix, which drives longer viewing times, and strong growth of video streaming driven by content providers like YouTube, which in many mobile networks today accounts for 50–70% of video traffic.

Ericsson also pointed to user behaviour changes, with TV and video content, increasingly consumed over mobile networks and on multiple devices, including smartphones, as well as the increasing appearance of video as part of other online applications, including news, advertisements and social media.

“The growth in data traffic is being driven both by increased smartphone subscriptions and a continued increase in average data volume per subscription, fuelled primarily by more viewing of video content,” said Ericsson, which reported a 65% year-on-year growth in mobile data traffic between Q4 2014 and Q4 2015.