Mobile data traffic outlook

Since Q2 2024, the market has experienced a continued reduction in the mobile network data traffic growth rate. The year-on-year growth rate for mobile network data traffic is expected to continue to decline, from 21 percent in 2024 to 16 percent in 2030. This means a CAGR of 19 percent over the full forecast period.

Total global mobile data traffic – excluding traffic generated by Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) – is expected to grow by a factor of around 2.5 to reach 303 EB per month in 2030. When FWA is included, total mobile network data traffic is anticipated to grow by a factor of around three, rising to 473 EB per month by the end of the forecast period.
 
5G’s share of mobile data traffic will reach an estimated 34 percent by the end of 2024, an increase from 25 percent at the end of 2023. This share is forecast to grow to 80 percent in 2030.

Factors impacting the forecast

Mobile data traffic growth between years can be highly volatile and vary significantly between regions, markets and service providers, depending on local market dynamics. Some factors that could further change the forecast for 2030 for mobile data traffic include:

• global macroeconomic changes (inflation and interest rates)
• the pace of subscriber migration to later generations in India, Latin America, South East Asia and Africa
• smartphone shipment development
• the uptake rate for new consumer applications (such as XR), new advanced devices and AI-enabled tools
• changes to the split between FWA and mobile data traffic when FWA connections grow
• continued improvements in the performance of deployed networks  

*Note: All Middle East and North Africa figures include the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

As seen in the last couple of years, the macroeconomic situation can change significantly with global inflation, interest rates and other factors. This can have a big impact on consumer willingness to pay for mobile services, thereby affecting mobile data usage.

Several large regions such as India, Latin America, South East Asia and Africa are expected to significantly migrate their subscriber base to later generations of mobile technologies in the coming years. Globally, it is expected that there will be an addition of 1.3 billion mobile broadband subscriptions during the forecast period. The future traffic patterns of these users will depend on network capabilities, tariff plans and available services.

Predicted traffic growth up to 2030 includes an assumption that an initial uptake of XR-type 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.
 
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. This could then impact the GB per smartphone numbers in those regions.

Globally, the growth in mobile data traffic per smartphone can be attributed to three main drivers: improved device capabilities, an increase in data-intensive content and growth in data consumption due to continued improvements in the performance of deployed networks.

It is important to keep in mind that there are significant variations in monthly data consumption within all regions, with some individual countries and service providers having considerably higher consumption than the regional averages.