Mobile data traffic outlook

Global mobile data traffic, excluding Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), is projected to increase by a factor of around 2.2 to reach 310 EB per month in 2031. Including FWA, total mobile network data traffic is expected to grow by a factor of around 2.4, reaching 482 EB per month by the end of the forecast period. Despite some regional differences, the overall projections are consistent with the estimate from six months ago.
 
The share of mobile data carried over 5G is forecast to rise from 34 percent at the end of 2024 to 43 percent by the end of 2025, reaching 83 percent in 2031. In 2031, a 14 percent year-on-year growth rate is expected, with a CAGR of 16 percent over the full forecast period. Total global mobile data traffic generated by 6G subscriptions is expected to be limited in 2031, due to the relatively low number of such subscriptions compared to 5G at that time.

Factors that can impact traffic growth

Mobile data traffic growth can be highly volatile and vary significantly between years, regions, markets and service providers, depending on local market dynamics. Factors that could impact traffic growth include:

• The uptake rate of new devices, such as those built for AR, and scalable, multimodal generative AI (GenAI) applications. The current predicted traffic growth up to 2031 includes an assumption that an initial uptake of extended reality (XR) services, including AR, VR and mixed reality (MR), will happen in the latter part of the forecast period. However, if adoption is accelerated, data traffic could significantly surpass our current traffic outlook at the end of the forecast period.
• Tariff plans and available services.
• Continued improvements in the performance of deployed networks.
• The pace of subscriber migration to later mobile technology generations in populous markets like India, Latin America, South East Asia and Africa.
• Changes to the split between FWA and mobile data traffic when FWA connections grow. With continued strong FWA uptake in parts of the world where fixed broadband connections have been limited, it is likely that household-based traffic will move from smartphones to FWA – especially for streaming services.
• Smartphone shipment volumes in different regions.

The growth in mobile data traffic per smartphone can be attributed to several drivers: improved device capabilities, affordable service plans, increased time spent consuming services, an increase in data-intensive content, and growth in data consumption due to continued improvements in deployed network performance.

During 2025, these factors affected mobile data traffic differently across several countries:

• In Brazil, mobile data prices rose by around 20 percent, driving data traffic growth rate down.
• In China, intensified competition among service providers supported growth in mobile data traffic.
• In South Korea, mobile data traffic reached double-digit year-on-year growth after a prolonged period of single-digit expansion, driven by a larger share of data-intensive content.
• In India, traffic growth increased year-on-year, supported by improved device capabilities.

There are significant variations in monthly data consumption within all regions, with some individual countries and service providers having considerably higher or lower consumption than the regional averages.

As traffic demand varies across regions and over time, it is important to keep in mind that average monthly data traffic growth in a region cannot be used to estimate daily peak traffic growth in a local area, or to support network evolution strategies there. Traffic growth is not universal across locations within a service provider’s network. For example, in dense urban locations, traffic demands can be up to 1,000 times larger relative to rural areas.^[3]