Ericsson Mobility Report November 2013 predicts that by 2019 5.6 Bn (60%) of the world’s 9.3 Bn mobiles will be smartphones up from 1.9 Bn (28%) in 2013. Ericsson also predict that connected PC’s and tablets plus mobile router subscriptions will rise from 300M in 2013 to 800M in 2019. The full report is here. Their predictions for router and tablet subscriptons they say is lower than previous reports due to the increase in the use of tethering mobile phones to these devices.
The growth in smartphones and mobile connected computers Ericsson predicts will increase mobile data traffic by a factor of 10 from 1.8 ExaBytes in 2013 to around 18 ExaBytes (18X1018 Bytes) by 2019. Already in 2013 mobile data traffic on networks is 10 times that of voice. So voice is well on the way to becoming irrelevent to network capacity while at the same time remaining a nice little earner for network operators unless or until the OTT players spoil the party.
The Ericsson predictions show the rapid swing to 3G and 4G technologies with only around 20% of mobiles remaining on 2G by 2019.