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.

Meanwhile, a separate survey of 500 U.S.-based IT managers shows that companies already spend an average of $1,840 to support each employee's mobile device every year.

In the Wandera-commissioned survey, 28% of the respondents reported at least one mobile security breach in the last year. Nearly half of that total said the beach cost their companies between $40,000 and $400,000.

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