Ericsson expects mobile data traffic in Malaysia to double this year in line with global trends, said its newly appointed President for Malaysia and Sri Lanka, Todd Ashton.

In its Ericsson Mobility Report recently, the company stated that mobile data traffic was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 50 per cent (2012-2018), driven mainly by video.

"This entails a growth of about 12 times by the end of 2018 and the increase will continue as people increasingly use mobile data in their everyday life.

"It is forecast that long-term evolution (LTE) population coverage in Asia Pacific (APAC) will increase to 60 per cent by 2017, surpassing the global average of 50 per cent in the same year," Ashton said in a statement.

By 2017, APAC will account for about two-thirds of the worlds LTE population coverage, he added.

Within Southeast Asia, Malaysia joins Singapore and the Philippines as the early adopters of technology.

"With the recent spectrum assignment in Malaysia, we expect that several players will launch mobile broadband services based on LTE by the middle of this year, with Maxis already leading the charge," he said.

LTE is the fastest-developing system in the history of mobile communications in terms of build-out and uptake. It is currently being deployed in all regions and will have subscriptions increasing from some 55 million at end-2012 to an estimated 1.6 billion in 2018.

Commenting on Malaysians' appetite for quality high-speed broadband services, Ashton, who was appointed to the new position on Feb 1, said with the fibre-to-the-home deployments having close to 40 per cent take-up and household broadband penetration exceeding 65 per cent, it was clear that there is a high demand in Malaysia for broadband.

"As broadband goes mobile, Malaysians will expect good coverage, with higher speeds and better quality of service, which is what our LTE technology will enable.

"The challenge for our customers will be to have a well-designed and optimised network supported by the latest tools and the most efficient processes.

"This is where Ericsson has a proven track record, delivering and managing the best performing and most profitable networks in the world.

"These are truly exciting times for the Malaysian market. I am looking forward to sharing my global experience and continue our effort to develop the networked society for people in Malaysia," he said.

In his prior role as Global Head of Sales for Ericsson Consulting and Systems Integration, Ashton focused on working with customers worldwide to monetise data by implementing new pricing packages, enabled by advanced network capabilities, improve customer experience and achieve economic efficiency gains through process improvements and network and IT platform consolidations.