Every month we wait for the inevitable message that tells us we have streamed too many funny cat videos and used up all our data for the rest of the month. 

We then spend the next two weeks stealing WIFI from coffee shops and tube stations in a desperate attempt to stay on the grid.

Now a study has revealed that it isn’t just us using up huge amounts of mobile data every month, as the global average is going to leap 720% in just five years.

The statistics, from the Giffgaff mobile network, revealed that last year we used 9.4 billion GB of data between us worldwide, which is pretty impressive.

But by 2021, that will have leapt to over 67 billion GB of data globally.

That’s a lot of cat videos. 

According to the study, the average individual in the UK uses 1.75GB each month, and this will rise to over 5GB by 2021.

It’s helpful to remember that it was only back in 2011 that the average customer was using 450mb each month.

According to Aplhr, this is the equivalent of streaming a BBC iPlayer programme for one hour using all your data for the entire month. 

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The experts have attributed this huge leap in data consumption to the increase of video streaming worldwide, rising from 4,375,000 GB in 2016 to 38, 148, 326 in 2021.

Other things that will increase will be web browsing, which will triple in five years, audio streaming, which will quadruple, and online messaging, which will increase ten fold.

Kim Faura, Chief Commercial Officer of Giffgaff, said: “Our research showed many consumers infrequently used their text and minute allowances, the demand now is for more data to keep up with mobile technology.”

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