U.S. remains world leader in mobile traffic, says Cisco

Recently, the U.S.-based networking giant Cisco released its updated Visual Networking Index (VNI) survey. According to an analysis of the report by the Brookings Institute, “global usage is expected to increase exponentially,” and that this year, “This year the number of cellphones is expected to exceed the worldwide population.”

Despite strong growth around the world, said Brookings, “The United States held its position as the leader in mobile traffic and is projected to remain in that position until at least 2018.” Nonetheless, U.S. dominance is slipping, and will continue in that direction. “Currently the United States accounts for 24 percent of global mobile traffic.  By 2018 that number is expected to decline to 17 percent.”

The explanation is, that the U.S. is, to some degree, a fulfilled market. Although its usage is not expected to decline, its Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is around .5 percent, trailing India (0.88), Russia (0.79), Mexico (0.73), China (0.73), and Indonesia (0.73).

In summary, Cisco predicted that by 2018:

•    there will be more than 10 billion mobile-ready devices and connections, about three billion more than there were in 2013.
•    the average mobile connection speed will nearly double, from 1.4 Mbps in 2013 to 2.5 Mbps by 2018.
•    there will be nearly five billion global mobile users in 2018, up from more than four billion in 2013.
•    global mobile IP traffic will reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes, up from less than 18 exabytes in 201

Cisco Visual Networking Index (Cisco, winter, 2014)

Cisco Predicts the US Maintains Lead in Mobile Broadband Usage (Brookings Institute, Mar. 31, 2014)