Cisco sees eight-fold increase in mobile data by 2020

Mobile data traffic is expected to grow eight-fold in the next five years, according to a forecast by Cisco. The increase will have a dramatic impact on businesses, as IT managers struggle to securely support mobile workers with wearables and other smart devices that increasingly rely on mobile video. Cisco said that smartphones alone will account for 81% of global mobile traffic by 2020.
 
In 2020, mobile data traffic will reach 367 exabytes, up from 44 exabytes in 2015, Cisco said. The 2020 forecast number is equivalent to 81 trillion images on MMS, or 28 daily images per person on earth for a year. It is also equivalent to 7 trillion video clips, like those on YouTube, which is more than 2.5 daily video clips per person on the planet per year.
 
 Cisco's forecast noted that since 2000 -- when the first camera phone was launched -- the number of mobile users has quintupled and will grow to 5.5 billion in 2020. In that year, the United Nations has projected, the global population will be 7.8 billion. Wearable devices, like smartwatches, will grow six-fold by 2020, with more than 600 million wearables in use, up from 97 million in 2015, Cisco said.

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