Mobile data traffic
Growth in mobile data traffic
Mobile network data traffic also includes traffic generated by fixed wireless access (FWA) services
Mobile data traffic continues to grow globally, mainly due to subscribers switching to newer generations of mobile technologies.
However, according to the Mobility Report published by Ericsson at the end of November 2024, the annual growth rate for mobile data traffic has been declining for several quarters and is expected to fall further, from 21% in 2024 to 16% in 2030, which corresponds to an average rate of 19% over the entire period.
Excluding traffic generated by fixed wireless access (FWA), this figure stood at 126 exabytes (EB) per month (126 billion billion bytes) at the end of 2024. Global mobile data traffic is set to increase two and a half times by 2030, reaching 303 EB per month. If the traffic generated by FWA is included, the monthly data volume at the end of 2024 was 164 EB and is expected to triple to 473 EB by 2030. In the third quarter of 2024, this volume was 157 EB, an increase of 21% over the previous quarter.
The reasons for the strong growth in mobile data traffic are the rising number of smartphone mobile subscriptions and also the increase in data volume, which is mainly in demand because of rising video consumption. According to Ericsson, video consumption is expected to account for 74% of global mobile network data traffic by the end of 2024.
The lion’s share of mobile data traffic is still absorbed by earlier-generation networks, but the number of 3G and 4G subscriptions continues to fall, and 2G and 3G network shutdowns are progressing worldwide. Meanwhile, the share of 5G in mobile data traffic is increasing steadily. It accounted for 34% at the end of 2024 (up from 25% at the end of 2023) and it is expected to make up as much as 80% of global mobile network data traffic by 2030.
FWA is also becoming increasingly popular worldwide, growing in terms of service providers, connections and traffic volumes. More than 80% of mobile operators now offer FWA products, and over half of them (54%) provide FWA services over 5G. At the end of 2024, 19% of global mobile data traffic was transported over the total of 160 million FWA connections. By 2030, the volume of data carried via FWA is expected to double, with 350 million connections, 80% of which use 5G.