The new edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report reveals that the number of mobile subscriptions in the Middle East has grown approximately nine percent year-on-year during Q1, while mobile penetration stood at 109 percent in Q1 2013. The report also highlighted that one in every 16 mobile subscriptions globally in Q1 2013 was from the Middle East. Ericsson also estimated that around 700 million mobile subscriptions are to be added in the MEA by the end of 2018.

The Ericsson report's findings also confirm that mobile-data traffic will continue to grow significantly in the coming years, a trend driven mainly by video. Globally, data traffic is expected to grow 12-fold by the end of 2018. Increasing usage is driven by continual growth in the amount of content available as well as the improved network speeds that come with HSPA and LTE development.

Anders Lindblad, president Ericsson Middle East Region, says: “LTE rollout has already started in some parts of the Middle East, while it is still in the early stages in other parts of the region. However, with the findings of today’s report, LTE is clearly the technology of the future for the Middle East. Globally, LTE services will be available to about 60 percent of the world’s population in 2018 and we expect LTE subscriptions to exceed one billion in 2017, driven by more capable devices and demand for data-intensive services such as video.”

The Mobility Report also addresses the concept of “app coverage” — broadening the definition of coverage from voice to include how well users are able to access their mobile apps — and presents a new framework explaining the effects of varying network performance in a way that is relevant to the user.