6.1 billion smartphone users worldwide by 2020: report

By year 2020, the total number of smartphone users will rise to 6.1 billion, or equivalent to 70 percent of the world's population, said Ericsson in its latest annual Mobility Report. And when this happens, smartphones will overtake the number of active fixed line subscriptions.

The 2.6 billion smartphone users today will grow rapidly that by 2020, total mobile subscription will reach 9.2 billion. At the same time, there will be 26 billion of connected devices when the Internet of Things, M2M services, mobile broadband and basic feature phones are taken into account.

This however is a correction of Ericsson's previous forecast that showed 50 billion devices will be connected by 2020.

Ericsson made the report by analyzing data collected from around 100 carriers.

Techcrunch says the report shows us the importance of smartphones as a global communication tool. In US and European markets, the growth of smartphones may have slowed down but the story is not the same for the rest of the world.

The report points to how our own behaviour as consumers is evolving, the need to invest in networks, and the opportunity for startups and bigger businesses to create apps and other services to meet mobile demands.

With emerging markets growing at a rapid pace, regions like Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa will account for 80 percent of all new subscriptions in the next five years.

The top five countries by net additions were India, China and Myanmar in Q1 of 2015. And in the same period with 108 million new subscriptions globally, Indonesia and Japan saw the most net additions.

Despite the slowdown in growth in developed markets, U.S. and Europe continue to see the most data usage per smartphone. Smartphones by 2020 will account for up to 80 percent of all mobile data traffic.  

The fact is video consumption on mobile is currently growing at a rate of 55 percent annually, Ericsson says. It further notes that YouTube alone accounts for between 40-60 percent of all video traffic today. Interestingly, music streaming is in a firm second place.

Mobile web browsing traffic will continue to decline. But SMS is still the most-used app in the U.S.