By 2022, 75% of All Mobile Data Traffic Will Be Video: Ericsson

Ericsson churns out the kind of statistics people like to put in the opening slides of their PowerPoints. Here's a perfect PowerPoint stat: By 2022, three-quarters of all mobile data traffic will be video. That comes from the November 2016 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report.

Between now and 2022, mobile video traffic will grow by 50 percent a year. Thanks to larger mobile devices with larger screens, the use of embedded video in social network pages and standard web pages is on the rise.

Here's another strong PowerPoint stat: "Between 2016 and 2022, the traffic generated by smartphones will increase by 10 times," Ericsson says.

Tablets are more popular for video viewing than are smartphones, Ericsson found. They're used for video streaming a higher percentage of time. While both smartphones and tablets are used to watch short clips, people reach for tablets when they want to watch long-form programs.

The share of video traffic streamed by tablets is still on the rise. Currently, nearly 60 percent of mobile traffic to tablets is video. Meanwhile, the share of video traffic to phones is decreasing, and is slightly lower than it was a year ago. YouTube is the big dog in mobile video streaming with 40 to 70 percent of all video traffic for most mobile networks, but local video providers are giving it a challenge in some countries. While Netflix is tops in living room streaming, it's not as popular on mobile: It typically accounts for 10 to 20 percent of all mobile traffic in established markets.

This year, North American mobile customers will average 5.1 GB per month of data traffic per smartphone. By 2022, that average will rise to 25 GB per month.

The report also looks at mobile subscriptions, live streaming, social networking, and the internet of things. It's available for free download (no registration required).

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net