Streaming Video Key Driver of Surging Mobile Data Usage, Says Gartner

Mobile video -- followed by music streaming and apps -- will be the key driver of global mobile data traffic in 2015, said a Gartner analysis released Thursday. Citing data from mobile providers, Gartner Research Director Jessica Ekholm said mobile video is generating half of all mobile data and will grow to more than 60 percent of mobile data consumption by 2018. Two variables in projected data usage are video-calling services and music streaming, Ekholm said. Five minutes of FaceTime video chat on a 3G network uses just 15 MB of data but as the number of video callers grows, “the collective total amount can be large,” she said. If users shift to higher bit rate music services, that could also affect data usage significantly, she said. “Mobile music streaming can easily generate hundreds of megabytes of data,” depending on the service; a user listening to Spotify can consume more than twice as much data as a Pandora user, she said. Overall, mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 59 percent this year to 52 terabytes, up from 33 terabytes last year due to newer, faster networks and growing numbers of consumers using more affordable 3G and 4G handsets. Mobile data growth is expected to continue into 2016 at a 53 percent clip to 80 million terabytes, she said. By 2018, half of North American mobile connections will use 4G networks, Ekholm said, and 4G users will generate 46 percent of all mobile data traffic, consuming nearly 5.5 GB of data monthly -- three times that of a 3G smartphone. Cisco this week projected a surge of mobile data usage in the coming years (see 1502030041).