The Middle East and Africa is forecast to have the world’s fastest mobile data traffic growth between 2013 and 2018, according to a report from networking technology firm Cisco.

The ‘Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (2013-2018)’ says that Middle East and Africa (MEA) mobile data traffic is expected to reach 1.49 Exabytes per month by 2018 – the equivalent of 372 million DVDs each month or 4,105 million text messages each second.

This represents 14-fold growth for Africa and the Mideast, beating other world regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America: areas that are expected to have 13-fold growth.

Data-enabled gadgets flooding the market are forecast to drive the high MEA demand.

Cisco further forecasts that in the MEA, LTE connections are to grow from 3.6 million in 2013 to 86.6 million in 2018.

“In MEA, mobile data traffic will continue its truly remarkable growth, which is indicative of mobility becoming a critical characteristic of almost every network experience, and the value consumers and businesses alike place on it,” said Fady Younes, regional sales manager and client director, Cisco.

Other forecasts from Cisco regarding the region’s data explosion include that:

• MEA mobile data traffic could grow two times faster than the region’s fixed internet protocol (IP) traffic from 2013 to 2018.
• Mobile data traffic is to account for 39% of the region’s fixed and mobile data traffic by 2018, up from 10% in 2013.
• In the MEA, 36% of mobile connections are to be 'smart' connections by 2018, up from 10% in 2013.
• In MEA, 90% of mobile data traffic is to be 'smart' traffic by 2018, up from 76% in 2013.

The MEA’s runaway mobile data growth; though, comes against the backdrop of strong global takeup.

Cisco notes that four trends mark this growth: mobile users growing from 4.1 billion in 2013 to 4.9 billion in 2018, mobile internet connections increasing from 7 billion in 2013 to 10 billion in 2018, mobile video growing from 59% of mobile data traffic in 2013 to 69% in 2018, and average mobile speeds nearly doubling from 1.4 Mbps in 2013 to 2.5 Mbps in 2018.

Cisco says that its report “relies upon independent analyst forecasts and real-world mobile data usage studies.”

“Upon this foundation are layered Cisco’s own estimates for mobile application adoption, minutes of use, and transmission speeds,” notes the company in a statement.