The forecast rise of mobile video may not come as a surprise to anyone, but the prediction of just how dominant it will be in a few short years is certainly remarkable.
In a joint whitepaper released Monday, Chinese smartphone makers Huawei and analyst firm Ovum said mobile video usage is expected to account for three-quarters of total 4G traffic by 2020. That figure will represent a five-fold increase over the 15 percent of traffic video accounted for in 2016, the paper said.
According to the Huawei and Ovum, the massive rise in mobile video traffic will be driven by 4K UHD video, increased social media video, virtual reality and augmented reality, 5G/FTTx network penetration and the rise of IT trends like cloud computing.
The report said enterprise video is also expected to play a major role in mobile video growth thanks to the rise of new videoconferencing technologies for employee training, meetings and collaboration, customer service and tele-medicine.
“Video conferencing is quickly shaping the strategic infrastructure business of telcos,” the companies wrote. “Major players are exploring new ways to implement successful strategies for enterprise video, striving to be the leaders in the field amidst the video business transformation opportunities that are available.”
In order to build successful video strategies, the paper said telecommunications companies will need to offer innovative bundled services like aggregated mobile video services; use differentiated, high-quality video experiences to increase customer loyalty and retention; and drive integration across the entire video industry ecosystem.
