Research article

Data explosion is driving pent-up data centre demand

Bandwidth usage in Europe is forecasted to grow by 34% annually until 2028


It will not come as a surprise that the amount of used and generated data increased in the last years and accelerated during the pandemic, with many businesses and individuals switching to online channels. Individuals spend more time online, shown by, amongst others, the increase of users of streaming platforms and services, whilst businesses increased their usage of cloud services to facilitate more remote working.

In Europe, more than 750 million people are using the internet, reflecting that 90% of Europe’s population is online, up from 65% in 2011. Although already close to 100%, the internet penetration rate for individuals is still forecasted to increase further. Especially streaming services and mobile data usage is predicted to grow further. In 2021, streaming services made up nearly 87% of European consumer internet traffic. Mobile internet usage has increased in the last years with the rollout of the 5G network. In 2021, more than 430 million people used internet services through their mobile devices, which is forecasted to increase by 20 million by 2025.

Furthermore, consumer spending through mobiles devices (i.e. m-commerce) is rising rapidly. According to Forrester, in 2022, in Europe’s top five markets, 54% of all internet shopping is done through mobile devices (i.e. smartphones and tablets). This number is forecasted to reach 58% by 2024 when more than €265 million in retail sales are purchased through mobile devices.

The number of European businesses that used cloud computing increased from 19% in 2014 to 39% in 2021, with Western Europe and Nordics increasing the most. Equinix forecast that this number will increase further and that roughly 72% of global businesses will use digital platforms by 2025. This is aligned with the findings from a survey conducted by Snow Software which showed that in 2021, three in five IT leaders saw increases in cloud services, communication software, video conferencing, and collaboration tools. Furthermore, almost all respondents said they are in the process of adopting cloud software in some form, with just 10% having no plans to do so, and 61% already increased their use of cloud services in the last year. This contributes to business growth rate as a study by Equinix showed that businesses not using cloud-based solutions show a two to three times slower growth rate in the last two years, highlighting the value of cloud computing.

Besides enterprises and individuals generating and consuming data, more and more data is used and generated by Machine to Machine (M2M) connections driven by a wider rollout of the 5G network and the further integration of the Internet of Things (IoT). Last year, there were 172 million cellular IoT connections in Europe which is forecasted to more than double to 406 million connections by 2025.

This resulted in the rapid growth of data generation and usage across Europe. In 2022, the total used international bandwidth in Europe is expected to increase by 35% year on year, reaching more than 5 million Gbps, reflecting an average data consumption of 8 Mbps per capita. TeleGeography forecasts international bandwidth will continue to grow at the same pace in the coming years, with an average annual growth rate of 34% expected in Europe until 2028, when 28.5 million Gbps of bandwidth will be used, reflecting 46 Mbps per capita - roughly sixfold of this year figure. This growth will be particularly pronounced in the Nordics and Western Europe, where the bandwidth per capita is forecasted to increase to nearly 141 Gbps and 78 Mbps per capita in 2028, respectively.

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