Smartphones to drive majority of mobile data traffic by 2017: Study

Smartphones will represent the lion’s share of mobile data traffic by 2017, with a 67.5 percent share, followed distantly by laptops with 14 percent, tablets at 11.7 percent and machine-to-machine devices (such as GPS systems in cars) at 5.1 percent. By 2017, there are projected to be 8.6 billion handheld and 1.7 billion machine-to-machine devices used globally. By 2015, the number of non-smartphones in the world will start declining, especially in the Middle East and Africa and the Asia Pacific, according to the Cisco VNI Mobile Forecast 2013.

World Newsmedia Network has published Global Digital Media Trendbook each year since 2006. The 2014 trendbook contains 500 data sets and 230 pages of analysis about digital media usage and revenue patterns, including this data set. To download the GDMT free executive summary, go to www.wnmn.org