According to The Economist, "sometime in the next few months, the number of mobile phones in use will exceed 3.3 billion, or half the world's population. No technology has ever spread faster around the globe: the mobile phone took less than two decades to reach this degree of penetration."
HT: Glenn Reynolds
Posted recently on Total Telecom, Hong Kong:
ReplyDeleteThere are more than 5 billion mobile subscribers in the world today, “and we are now on track to hit 6
billion mobile connections in the first half of 2012,” Conway said. With the population of the earth standing
at 6.9 billion, mobile penetration “will [soon] exceed the global population,” he predicted
Gene: The Economist's number seems a lot more realistic than 6 billion within a little over a year. All the world's kids will have their own phones?
ReplyDeleteI wondered about the exceeding the world population when large numbers of the worlds people still do no have access, much less subscriptions.
ReplyDeleteEither way it is phenomenal.
An interesting book by Tom Hayes, "Jump Point" does a good job of discussing the implications of this.
ReplyDeleteJeez, I thought there were 6 billion cellphones in Los Angeles alone, each one in constant use by drivers, people in supermarkets and every young woman I see.
ReplyDeleteMy 2011 Predictions.. here's hoping your sunshiney outlook is right and I'm wrong:
ReplyDeletehttp://themeanoldinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/12/predictions-for-2011-tap-dancing-in.html