Telecom Lead India: Ericsson in its latest mobility report said that mobile data traffic doubled between Q4 2011 and Q4 2012.
Mobile data traffic grew 28 percent between Q3 and Q4 2012.
Globally, there were net additions of 140 million subscriptions. Out of this, 30 million was in China.
During 2012, smartphones accounted for 40 percent of new mobile phone sales, compared with 30 percent in 2011.
Ericsson says global mobile penetration reached 89 percent in Q4 2012 and mobile subscriptions now total around 6.3 billion.
However, the actual number of subscribers is around 4.4 billion, since many
people have several subscriptions.
China alone accounted for 22 percent of net additions, adding around 30 million subscriptions.
India (+11 million), Bangladesh (+9 million), Indonesia (+8 million), and Nigeria (+5 million) follow in terms of net additions.
Mobile subscriptions have grown around nine percent year-on-year and two percent quarter-on-quarter.
In Q4, mobile broadband subscriptions grew by 125 million to 1.5 billion, reflecting a 50 percent year-on-year increase.
Approximately 40 percent of all mobile phones sold during 2012 were smartphones, compared to around 30 percent for the full year 2011. Only around 15-20 percent of the worldwide installed base of mobile phone subscriptions uses smartphones, which means that there is considerable room for further uptake.
GSM/GPRS/EDGE subscriptions grew 44 million and WCDMA/HSPA grew 70 million. Together these technologies represent 80 percent of total
net additions.
LTE subscriptions grew from 14 million to 57 million.
