Five Billion Mobile Phone Subscriptions Worldwide Techtree

Thanks to emerging economies like China and India

The number of mobile subscriptions on the planet has reached a staggering 5 billion! That's right folks. There are 5 billion mobile phone subscribers on the planet right now.

According to data released by Ericsson, just a decade ago, the number of mobile phone users was a paltry 720 million. Today, China alone has over 720 million subscribers! The growth has been mostly seen in emerging economies like China and India which continue to add more subscribers at a staggering pace every month. Every day - at least 2 million new people get a mobile connection across the globe.

As mentioned earlier, the numbers coming in from India and China continue to be mind boggling. China for instance currently has over 720 million subscribers followed by India with almost 600 million. If this kind of growth continues almost every person living on the planet will be on the verge of getting a mobile phone in the next few years, After all, the earth "only" has 6.8 billion people!


For companies fearing saturation, the good news is that 3G coverage is still very low and most of the world is still hooked to 2.75G networks. The report states that only 500 million 3G connection exists as of now and that even by 2015 it will reach 3.5 billion users. Even the huge Indian market has just started 3G services with only a few people having 3G access.

Ericsson estimates that the number of connected devices will drive the growth in markets which have already reaches a saturation point. In fact, by the end of this decade, there will be staggering 50 billion mobile devices across the globe