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      Continued strong growth of mobile network data traffic in Q1 2026

      Mobile network traffic Q1 2026

      Mobile network data traffic growth exceeded expectations in last 12 months

      Key findings

      Mobile network data traffic growth continued to exceed expectations, rising 22 percent between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026.

      The year-on-year growth in Q1 2026 was mainly driven by continued strong growth in India and North America.

      Total monthly global mobile network data traffic reached 210 EB in Q1 2026.

      The year-on-year growth in Q1 2026 was mainly driven by continued strong growth in India and North America. Total monthly global mobile network data traffic reached 210 EB. The quarter-on-quarter mobile network data traffic growth between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 was around 5 percent.

      Mobile data traffic growth is being driven by both rising smartphone subscriptions and increasing average data volume per subscription, fueled primarily by increased video content consumption. At the end of 2025, video traffic accounted for around 75 percent of all mobile data traffic.

      Figure 7 shows the total monthly global network data traffic from Q1 2019 to Q1 2026, along with year-on-year percentage growth for mobile network data traffic.

      Figure 7: Global mobile network data traffic and year-on-year growth

      Figure 7: Global mobile network data traffic and year-on-year growth
      Bar graph depicting quarterly growth in the monthly global mobile network traffic, which rises steadily from just over 25 EB in Q1 2019 to 210 EB in Q1 2026. Layered onto this is a line graph depicting the year-on-year growth percentage. Although the total number in EB is rising, the line graph shows that the rate of year-on-year growth rate has been declining slowly overall, but has been rising slightly since Q2 2025.

      Note: Mobile network data traffic also includes traffic generated by Fixed Wireless Access services.

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