Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 92 per cent from 2010 to 2015, to reach 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015.
The stats come from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast. In an ealrier post today, we looked at the section of the report that looks back at mobile data traffic in 2010. But the report also looks ahead 2015. Apart from the massive increase in data traffic, it also predicts that will be nearly one mobile device per capita by 2015, and over 7.1bn mobile-connected devices, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules, in 2015. This is approximately equal to the worlds population in 2015 (7.2bn).
Mobile network connection speeds will increase 10-fold by 2015. The average mobile network connection speed (215kbps in 2010) will grow at a CAGR of 60 per cent to exceed 2.2 megabits per second (Mbps) in 2015.
Two-thirds of the worlds mobile data traffic will be video by 2015. Mobile video will more than double every year between 2010 and 2015. Cisco notes that mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the VNI forecast at this time.
Mobile-connected tablets will generate as much traffic in 2015 as the entire global mobile network in 2010. The amount of mobile data traffic generated by tablets in 2015 (248 petabytes per month) will be approximately equal to the total amount of global mobile data traffic in 2010 (242 petabytes per month). The same will be true of M2M traffic, which will reach 295 petabytes per month in 2015. 
The average smartphone will generate 1.3GB of traffic per month in 2015, a 16-fold increase over the 2010 average of 79MB per month. Aggregate smartphone traffic in 2015 will be 47 times greater than it is today, with a CAGR of 116 per cent.
By 2015, over 800m terabytes of mobile data traffic will be offloaded to the fixed network by means of dual-mode devices and femtocells. Without dual-mode and femtocell offload of smartphone and tablet traffic, total mobile data traffic would reach 7.1 exabytes per month in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 95 per cent.
The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region, at 129 per cent CAGR, followed by Latin America at 111 per cent and Central and Eastern Europe at 102 per cent.
There will be 788m mobile-only internet users by 2015. The mobile-only internet population will grow 56-fold from 14m at the end of 2010 to 788m by the end of 2015. The mobile network will break the electricity barrier in more than four major regions by 2015. By 2015, four major regions (Sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia, S. Asia, and the Middle East) and 40 countries (including India, Indonesia, and Nigeria) will have more people with mobile network access than with access to electricity at home. The off-grid, on-net population will reach 138m by 2015.
