Mobile Devices to Outnumber Humans in 2012

The world population hit 7 billion in November 2011 and Worldometers estimated that net population growth is about 77,000 per day. Very soon, human will be outnumbered by mobile devices. Infact, according to network firm Cisco, that would happen this year.

Screen-shot of my laptop display.

Not surprising as the usage of mobile communication gadget is increasing at exponential rate and the personal mobile equipment is flooding the market like a huge wave.

The world is getting smaller and data users will be more and more mobile, no doubt. But those who produce data will still need to chain themselves to a desk in that sense; they will not be that mobile. Plus, in order to handle delicate data, you will need the big screens. Then again, how many of us would be managing such data compared to the mostly 'data consumers' masses?

I don't have a 7-inch tablet yet but I can't imagine doing a decent work on one if I can't do the same on my 3.5 inch 4S screen. At the most I read e-mails, news, and other Internet surfing from it. Replying to e-mails with lengthy wordings is a bit of a struggle too.

That said, let's see what the network company, Cisco said in their report.

Go to Cisco's global mobile data traffic forecast page and you will see a comprehensive Cisco VNI Forecast, their ongoing initiative to track and forecast the impact of visual networking applications on global networks. The forecast presents Cisco's major global mobile data traffic and growth trends. The followings are some of the summary of the long report:

1. The number of mobile devices will exceed the world’s population in 2012

2. There will be over 10 billion mobile connected devices in 2016

3. By 2016 monthly global mobile data traffic will surpass 10 exabytes (1 exabytes = approx. 1 billion gigabytes)

4. As a comparison, Cisco reported that mobile data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size of the global internet data in 2000

5. Global mobile-data traffic will increase eighteenfold between now and 2016

6. Currently the average smartphone uses 150MB of data per month but this is expected to rise to 2.6GB gigabytes by 2016. WELCOME TO THE GIGABYTE CLUB!

7. Mobile-network connection speeds will increase ninefold by 2016

8. Two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2016

9. In 2011 there were 34 million tablets and by 2016 tablets are predicted to account for more than 10% of global mobile traffic, out-pacing smartphones by miles.

If you like long and comprehensive report, jump to Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011–2016