Mobile Phones, one of the best mediums of modern-day communication, have achieved an outstanding growth since its launch.
Informa Telecoms and Media, the research group, concluded that there are now an estimated 3.3 billion mobile phone connections around the world, which is equal to half the world’s population.
According to the research, a significant rise in mobile phone subscriptions have been noticed, which is 18 percent from 2.8 bn at the end of 2006. India and China are listed as emerging markets to buy handsets. For instance, Vodafone mentioned India as a key business opportunity that covers 13 percent at the beginning of the year and expects to reach a target of over 13 percent within a few years.
However, the important thing to notice is that the actual number of phone users are less than 2.5 billion than the subscriptions figures. It has been seen that about a quarter of the mobile phone owners are believed to have two or even three mobile phone connections.
1981 was the year that offered the first commercial mobile network. Since then it took 19 years, until 2000, to cover the first 10 per cent of the world’s population and till 2009, about 60 percent penetration and 66 per cent penetration till 2012 is expected.
It is also said that over 10 per cent of the world’s population is out of reach of a mobile network.
