(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar is ideally-placed to advance digital businesses and society, as total Internet users in the Middle East and Africa will grow 1.6-fold to 425 million by 2019, or 27 percent of the population, due to growing demand for mobile devices, video and social networking, according to the 10th annual Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast 2015 launched yesterday.
By 2019, there will be nearly 3.9 billion global Internet users, up from 2.8 billion last year.
In the Middle East and Africa, IP traffic will grow six-fold by 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 44 percent.
Factors expected to drive traffic growth include global increases in Internet users, personal devices, machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, faster broadband speeds, and the adoption of advanced video services.
Social networking will be the most highly-penetrated residential Internet service in the Middle East and Africa, with 176 million users, or used by 81 percent of residential Internet users.
"As consumers, businesses and societies in Qatar head towards the digital era with the Internet of everything gaining momentum, VNI is more relevant now in its 10th year than it was in its first.
"For our customers and the industry ecosystem, we look forward to continuing to report on trends, challenges they bring, and opportunities ahead," said Mohammad Hammoudi (pictured), General Manager, Cisco Qatar.
"We are entering into a very dynamic technological era and the rapid increase in connected devices will benefit industries, including manufacturing, transportation, oil and gas, utilities, government, healthcare, sports, entertainment and education in terms of increased efficiency, reduced costs, and improvement of the lives of citizens," he said.
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