According to latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, nearly 2.6 billion new subscribers will be added to mobile broadband networks in the next six years. Report shows the highest year-on-year mobile data growth globally since 2013, led by massive growth in India, and highlights the underlying need for mobile data.

The use of smartphones and easy access to mobile internet services comprise a major part of the traffic numbers. Ericsson analyzes "smartphone mobile data traffic" within "mobile data traffic" to illustrate this trend more clearly. By the end of 2022, total smartphone mobile data traffic will have increased 9X, reaching 66 ExaBytes per month.

In 2018, LTE (4G) will overtake GSM as the largest access technology by number of subscriptions. It has taken only five years for LTE to cover 2.5 billion people, compared to eight years for WCDMA/HSPA, or 3G. In the first quarter of this year alone, 250 million new LTE subscriptions were added.

Company anticipates more than half a billion 5G subscriptions and a population coverage of 15 percent by 2022. While LTE uptake is driven by demand for improved user experience and faster networks, 5G deployment will also be driven by the need for enhanced mobile broadband capabilities as well as industry solutions for efficiency and automation. 5G will be the one network to support a diversity of use cases. More than half a billion 5G subscriptions are expected to be activated by 2022, not including IoT connections.