Photo sharing: trillions and rising Deloitte Global predicts that in 2016, 2.5 trillion photos Smartphones can reduce the processes of taking, will be shared or stored online, a 15 percent increase adjusting and sending a high definition photo to less on the prior year. About three-quarters of this total will than a second. 357 likely be shares, and the remainder online back ups . The dominance of the smartphone to photo We estimate that over 90 percent of these photos sharing is due to its ubiquity and the rate at which will have been taken over a smartphone; digital SLRs, owners upgrade their devices. We expect 1.6 billion compact cameras, tablets and laptops will collectively smartphones to be sold in total this year, equivalent to contribute the remainder. This estimate does not include about 23 times peak sales of film cameras (70 million the trillions of photos that remain on devices’ memory. units, 1999), 13 times the peak for digital cameras (120 million SLR and compact digital cameras, 2010) The expected network impact of all this sharing will and 40 times 2014 digital camera sales (40 million 358 359 be about 3.5 exabytes , a 20 percent increase over units) . We forecast about three-quarters of the previous year. We expect the network impact of smartphones sold to be upgrades, with most having photographs to continue rising for the foreseeable better cameras, processors, connectivity and storage future, driven by steady increases in the volume of than their predecessors. photos taken, shared and backed up, as well as rising average file size. We estimate the number of photos shared online to be about 31 times the volume taken (let alone shared) in the Photo sharing has been and will likely be enabled 360 1990s, when about 80 billion were taken every year . and encouraged by improvements in smartphone capabilities, as well as faster fixed and mobile In 2016, we expect the average size of photos taken to connectivity. increase, thanks to the rising resolution of smartphone cameras. Average resolution, as measured in megapixels Photography’s appeal is partly about capturing and (MP), of smartphones on sale increased from 2.4 MP sharing a moment: smartphones enable both to occur 361 in 2007 to 9 MP last year . We forecast average almost simultaneously. They remove the lengthy time resolution for smartphones on sale to surpass 10 MP this lag with standard photographic film between taking and year (see Figure 22). sharing a photo. Figure 22: Smartphone cameras average resolution (megapixels), 2007‑2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Source: GSM Arena. For more information on the source, see endnote Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2016 59