Internet Access Providers are in the Post-PC Era

Nearly two decades ago, consumer demand for internet access was driven primarily by consumers using personal computers. These days, smartphones tend to drive accounts. In the future, sensor connections are likely to dominate growth. That is one example of what, a decade ago, we started to call the post-PC era. In terms of shipments, other computing devices surpassed shipments of PCs in 2010 or 2011.

In terms of installed base, smartphones and PCs

The implications for internet access providers are significant, in consumer markets, important, but less so, in enterprise markets. The reason is that consumers do most of their computing or internet-app activities on smartphones and other devices, not PCs. PCs still are the workhorse for enterprises.

Global Mobile Data Traffic, 2016–2021
	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	CAGR
By Application Category (TB per Month)
Web, data, and VoIP	2,153,676	2,938,884	3,779,988	4,674,801	5,538,615	6,434,681	24%
Video	4,375,000	7,225,123	11,415,329	17,564,661	26,067,686	38,148,326	54%
Audio streaming	559,999	843,394	1,193,711	1,620,662	2,103,876	2,674,183	37%
File sharing	151,874	258,617	403,273	592,352	820,954	1,102,867	49%
By Device Type (TB per Month)
Non-smartphones	109,505	137,852	169,955	199,173	236,257	269,189	20%
Smartphones	5,887,078	9,328,403	14,076,023	20,710,278	29,484,004	42,017,358	48%
Tablets and PCs	1,085,059	1,514,749	2,040,640	2,681,672	3,457,800	4,439,720	33%
M2M	157,998	284,415	505,292	861,025	1,409,949	2,224,543	70%
Other portable devices	910	599	391	328	432	659	-6%
By Region (TB per Month)
North America	1,411,021	2,000,301	2,776,564	3,753,177	4,838,494	6,397,092	35%
Western Europe	736,377	1,084,396	1,534,120	2,167,831	3,019,843	4,189,615	42%
Asia Pacific	3,109,117	4,900,007	7,434,743	11,048,030	15,911,056	22,845,908	49%
Latin America	449,944	688,890	1,023,408	1,475,498	2,078,670	2,898,651	45%
Central and Eastern Europe	923,803	1,396,079	2,013,989	2,836,076	3,886,561	5,252,334	42%
Middle East and Africa	610,286	1,196,346	2,009,476	3,171,864	4,853,817	7,367,869	65%
Total (TB per Month)
Total Mobile Data Traffic	7,240,550	11,266,018	16,792,300	24,452,476	34,588,442	48,951,469	47%

Source: Cisco Mobile VNI, 2017

Still, some eight billion devices were connected to mobile networks alone in 2016, and smartphone traffic (as distinct from the number of used devices) dwarfs PC traffic.

source: Cisco

source: Business Insider

The point is that smartphones now drive traffic, while machine-to-machine communications and internet of things likely will drive device growth and internet access connections.