LTE Traffic Expected to Grow Over 200 Percent Worldwide in 2013

Recently, ABI Research released the results of an analysis they conducted on mobile traffic and data usage. The rate of growth is consistently on the rise. By the end of 2012, the total amount for mobile data traffic came in at 13,412 petabytes. A petabyte is a unit of information that is equal to one quadrillion. This demonstrates an increase of 69 percent between 2011 and 2012.

ABI Research is a market research and market intelligence firm. They are based out of New York. The company was founded in 1990 and incorporated in 1991 as Allied Business Intelligence, Inc. Their blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight and actionable, timely, real-world data points for thousands of decision makers in the technology sector every year.

A further breakdown shows that 46 percent of the total growth was taken by 3G data usage in 2012. This was an increase of about 130 percent since 2011. If you thought that was a jump, 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) traffic is accelerating at almost twice the speed.

ABI Research analysis predicts that 4G LTE is showing a growth rate of 207 percent in 2013. In comparison, for the same period, 3G traffic should be showing a growth rate of 99 percent. Marina Lu, a research associate at ABI Research said, “In developed markets, 4G is rapidly gaining traction. Verizon Wireless, for example, has reported that 50 percent of its data usage is on 4G LTE.”

One of the major contributors behind the growing traffic for mobile data usage is smartphone apps. A great deal of traffic usage is generated by downloading smartphone apps. At this point, these downloads have become a significant contributor to the mobile data traffic and its increase.

Last year between 2011 and 2012, smartphone downloads increased by 88 percent. That represents 36.2 billion smartphone apps that were downloaded. The majority of these apps downloaded took place on the Asia-Pacific side. They had a total of 39 percent, while North America had about 25 percent of total smartphone app downloads.

IP and Web browsing still had the most traffic accounting for 51 percent of the total mobile traffic in 2012. ABI Research expects that by 2018, large mobile device screens and 4G data speeds will stimulate mobile video streaming and downloads. They predict that this will account for 56 percent of the total traffic.

While smartphone apps do encourage the adoption of mobile data tariffs, the operators messaging and voice revenue models are being threatened by Over-The-Top Instant Messaging and VoIP services. Jake Saunders, vice president for ABI Research forecasting said, “The emergent growth in enterprise apps does have potential. Both ATT and Orange have invested in enterprise apps, setting up their own in-house service teams. Orange is offering Health Trusts mobile-centric ID authentication that allows them to offer confidential and secure mobile medical services that can enhance aftercare support and increase efficiency.”

According to the ABI Research, the “Mobile Data Traffic & Usage” Market Data provides an in-depth resource of traffic and end-user related metrics at a global, regional and mobile carrier level.