The devices have allowed video to take the lead in a business once dominated by voice calls.
According to companies that monitor traffic, video already does or will soon account for most mobile data traffic.
"If you want to put 2011 into a nutshell you can say that for the mobile phone companies their business is changing from an ears business - people speaking and hearing - into an eyes business with people looking at little screens," commented Stefan Zehle, chief executive of Coleago Consulting.
Cisco chief John Chambers added that the visual medium would soon become ubiquitous in mobile communication.
"It won't be fifty to sixty per cent of traffic on networks in five years out that will be visual. It will be eighty to ninety per cent. Everything you do will have visual capability."
