NZ’s slow mobile data traffic growth

Bill Bennett -

New Zealand’s mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual rate of 50 percent between 2012 and 2017 according to the latest Cisco VNI mobile forecast.

During that time total traffic will grow eight-fold.

Don’t be too impressed. That performance is slow compared to the rest of the world. Cisco says global mobile traffic will grow 13-fold over the same period.

It doesn't help that mobile data is expensive in New Zealand by international standards.

In 2012, mobile traffic was 1,500 TB a month. By 2017 that will climb to 11,700 TB a month.

Other highlights.

  • Mobile data will grow 1.8 times faster than fixed-line data in New Zealand from 2012 to 2017. Globally that ratio is 2.8. 
  • Mobile data accounted for 4 percent of total NZ data traffic in 2012, by 2017 it will account for 10 percent of the total.