Here’s a datapoint that underscores the importance of getting comfortable with integrating mobile into your campaign plans: The number of mobile-connected devices will easily top the number of people on the planet by the end of 2016. That’s according to a new study from Cisco Systems.
The study estimates that by the end of 2016, the planet will contain some 10 billion mobile devices. The world’s population that year is projected to be just under 7.3 billion.
The staggering increase in the number of mobile devices would of course come with an sizable increase in the amount of data traffic.
Looking back at 2011, Cisco found that mobile data traffic more than doubled last year, and it’s expected to double again by the end of this year. The study also estimates that by 2016, two-thirds of all the world’s mobile traffic will come from video.
“Mobile video will increase 25-fold between 2011 and 2016, accounting for over 70 percent of total mobile data traffic,” according to the report.
Mary Brown, Cisco’s government affairs director, told Reuters that she hopes the report lights a fire under Congress, pushing them to address ways to increase the amount of spectrum available to mobile networks.