Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson sees a tenfold increase in mobile data traffic by the year 2016.
Video would be the main driver behind the surge, according to the latest Traffic and Market Data report published by the company.
Mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to reach almost five billion by 2016, up from the expected 900 million by the end of 2011. As per Ericsson, this would "represent 60% year-on-year growth."
However, users living in urban areas, covering less than one per cent of the Earth’s total area, are set to generate around 60% of mobile traffic.
Traffic generated by advanced smartphones is expected to increase 12-fold by 2016, which will be almost equal to mobile PC-generated traffic.
India and China account for some 40% of the estimated global mobile subscriptions at 5.8 billion as of the third quarter of 2011, Ericsson adds.
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