United States tech giants, Cisco has predicted that the demand for mobile access, video and internet services in Nigeria, other parts of Africa and the Middle East will rise significantly to 425 million.
According to the 10th annual Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2015, by 2019, there will be nearly 3.9 billion global internet users (more than 51 per cent of the world’s population), up from 2.8 billion in 2014.
In Middle East and Africa, internet protocol (IP) traffic will jump six-fold by 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 44 per cent.
Factors expected to drive traffic growth include global increases in internet users, personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, faster broadband speeds, and the adoption of advanced video services.
Internet traffic will grow 6.8-fold from 2014 to 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 47 per cent and there will be 2.1 billion networked devices in 2019, up from 1.4 billion last year.
The tech company said 78 per cent of all networked devices will be mobile-connected in 2019 with M2M modules accounting for 17 per cent (358.9 million) of all networked devices in 2019, compared to eight per cent (112.1 million) last year; tablets will account for four per cent (93.1 million) of all networked devices in 2019, compared to two per cent (24.7 million) last year while smartphones will account for 31 per cent (652.0 million) of all networked devices in 2019, compared to 14 per cent (196.6 million) last year and non-smartphones will account for 38.3 per cent (818.9 million) of all networked devices in 2019, compared to 68 per cent (943.6 million) last year.
General Manager, Cisco Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Dare Ogunlade, said the relevance of VNI is underscored by the rise in internet of everything.
“As consumers, businesses and societies in Nigeria head towards the digital era with the Internet of Everything gaining momentum, VNI is even more relevant now in its 10th year than it was in its first. For our customers and the industry ecosystem as a whole, we look forward to continuing to report on these trends, the challenges they bring, and the immense opportunities ahead,” he said.
