India's mobile data traffic to grow 15-fold by 2021:report

Mobile data traffic in the country is expected to grow the fastest globally at 15 times by 2021, according to a report.

The country also grew the most in terms of net additions in mobile subscriptions during the March quarter at over 21 million, followed by Myanmar and Indonesia with 5 million net additions each and US and Pakistan with over 3 million net additions each, the Ericsson Mobility Report said.

The latest edition of the report reveals that globally Internet of Things (IoT) is set to overtake mobile phones as the largest category of connected devices by 2018.

Between 2015 and 2021, the number of IoT connected devices is expected to grow 23% annually, of which cellular IoT is forecast to have the highest growth rate.

Of the 28 billion total devices that will be connected by 2021, close to 16 billion will be IoT devices, the report said.

"IoT is now accelerating as device costs fall and innovative applications emerge. From 2020, commercial deployment of 5G networks will provide additional capabilities that are critical for IoT, such as network slicing and the capacity to connect exponentially more devices than is possible today," said Rima Qureshi, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Ericsson.

Western Europe is expected to lead the way in adding IoT connections. The number of IoT devices in this market is projected to grow 400 per cent by 2021, principally driven by regulatory requirements, the report noted.

Smartphone subscriptions will continue to increase and are forecast to surpass those for basic phones by September quarter this year, it added.

"By 2021, smartphone subscriptions will almost double from 3.4 billion to 6.3 billion," according to the report.

It also said that there are now 5 billion unique mobile subscribers in the world.

The use of cellular data for smartphone video grew 127% in a period of 15 months between 2014 and 2015, the report noted.