Cisco reduced the predicted increase in Brazilian mobile data traffic in this year’s Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, which gives the company’s predictions for the period of 2012 to 2017. Brazil’s mobile data traffic is now expected to increase 12-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65%, lower than the global and Latin American region rates, both of which are forecasted to increase 13-fold from 2012 to 2017.
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In addition, Brazil’s predicted 12-fold increase is smaller than last year’s estimate. In last year’s survey, Cisco noted that Brazil’s mobile data traffic was expected to increase 19-fold over the five year period from 2011 to 2016, which was even higher than the global rate, which at the time was forecasted to increase 18-fold.
“This index includes both consumer and corporate traffic. While Brazilian consumer mobile data traffic will grow at the global rate of 13-fold, in the corporate segment the rate is smaller: only 7-fold,” explained Anderson A. André, operations director for the service provider segment at Cisco Systems (check out this video interview with him— in Portuguese).
Even with a smaller growth rate than the global and Latin American rates, Brazilian mobile data traffic in 2017 will be equivalent to 568x the volume of mobile traffic from ten years earlier in 2007, which is a huge jump. By 2017, mobile data traffic is expected to reach 251,518 Terabytes (0.25 Exabytes) per month, the equivalent of 63 million DVDs played each month or 693 million text messages sent each second.
Much of the growth will be boosted by video consumption. And instead of downloading, many users will take the next step: streaming videos, which demands more bandwidth and mobile capacity.
“In Brazil, 72% of all mobile data traffic in 2017 will be video,” said André.
Brazil’s highlights
Brazilian mobile data traffic will:
- grow 12-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 65%
- reach 251,518 Terabytes (0.25 Exabytes) per month in 2017, the equivalent of 63 million DVDs played each month or 693 million text messages sent each second
- reach an annual run rate of 3.0 Exabytes in 2017
- grow 1.3 times faster than Brazilian fixed IP traffic from 2012 to 2017
- account for 5% of Brazilian fixed and mobile data traffic in 2017, up from 3% in 2012
- be equivalent in 2017 to 568x the volume of Brazilian mobile traffic ten years earlier in 2007
Mobile traffic:
- per mobile-connected device (excluding M2M), will reach 778 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 74 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 60%
- per mobile connection (including M2M) will reach 704 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 73 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 57%
- per user will reach 1,367 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 127 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 59%
- per capita will reach 1,197 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 103 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 63%
Latin American highlights
Latin American mobile data traffic will:
- grow 13-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 67%
- reach 722,986 Terabytes (0.72 Exabytes) per month in 2017, the equivalent of 181 million DVDs played each month or 1.992 million text messages sent each second
- reach an annual run rate of 8.7 Exabytes in 2017
- grow 1.5 times faster than Latin American fixed IP traffic from 2012 to 2017
- account for 7% of Latin American fixed and mobile data traffic in 2017, up from 3% in 2012
- be equivalent in 2017 to 785x the volume of Latin American mobile traffic ten years earlier (in 2007)
Mobile traffic:
- per mobile-connected device (excluding M2M) will reach 849 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 78 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 61%
- per mobile connection (including M2M) will reach 769 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 77 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 58%
- per user will reach 1,411 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 122 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 61%
- per capita will reach 1,120 megabytes per month in 2017, up from 90 megabytes per month in 2012, a CAGR of 66%
