Posted: 22nd Feb, 2012 By: MarkJ

The latest biannual global
H2 2011 Allot MobileTrends Report from
Allot Communications has revealed that Mobile Broadband data traffic grew by 83% in the second half of the year (CAGR of 234%) and is
dominated by video streaming, which accounted for 42% of all usage (up from 39% in H1 2011); the popular YouTube video sharing site alone was responsible for 24% of total broadband traffic (up from 22% in H1).
However, the
fastest growing applications were VoIP and Instant Messaging (IM), which grew by 114% (up from 101% in H1). It's interesting to note that the
File Sharing (P2P) growth rate is in decline, gaining 29% compared to a 33% growth rate in the first half of 2011.
Andrei Elefant, Allot’s VP of Marketing and Product Management, said:
"The phenomenal growth of OTT VoIP and IM represents both a challenge and an opportunity for mobile operators. Intelligent, application-based data pricing is the way forward for operators, allowing them to maximize data revenues based on its true value to subscribers."
The data also shows that
Skype continues to account for the lion's share of global mobile VoIP bandwidth (79%), yet this actually represents a decline from 82% in H1. New VoIP entrants, such as
Viber,
ooVoo and
Tango, seem to be eating away at Skype's share (Viber already accounts for 2% of global mobile traffic).
Apparently
Facebook Messenger is now an all-time "
killer app" on mobile after having risen from zero to 22% of total IM traffic in just four months. But mobile traffic for Facebook (social network) itself grew by 105%, which is sharply down on the 166% seen during H1.
Meanwhile traffic from the
Android Market (Smartphone App Store) grew by a phenomenal 232%, which is four times faster than Apple's admittedly much more established
iOS App Store (61%). But the iOS App Store still dominates 79% of related traffic, while Android Market holds just 18%.
The important thing to take away from this is that overall growth continues to be heading in a sharply upwards direction. Allot's results are a useful mirror for Cisco's recent and much more detailed
Mobile VNI report.