Global Mobile Customer Base Exceeds 2.6 Billion

According to the latest figures from The Mobile World, the mobile telecoms analysis company, there are now over 2.6 billion mobile users in the world. John Tysoe, Co-founder and Principal Analyst at The Mobile World commented: "The adoption of mobile telecommunications worldwide continues to show an upward trend, with particularly strong growth in India, China and the Middle East & Africa. Our forecasts for the remainder of this year indicate that this growth will have accelerated in the final quarter of 2006 resulting in record additions, taking the total number of mobile users globally to 2.7 billion by the end of December. We also expect annual handset sales to exceed one billion units for the first time in 2006, with a record 300m sold in the fourth quarter alone".

• 2,548m mobile users worldwide at 30 September 2006, equivalent to 39% of global population.
• Global additions of 128 million in the September quarter, the second highest increase in history (highest ever increase was 142m in the fourth quarter 2005).
• Annual net additions exceeded 500 million for the first time in the twelve months to 30 September 2006.
• GSM customer base through 2 billion in early September, while GSM and 3GSM customers together exceed 2.2bn today.
• Broadband (W-CDMA and EV-DO) customers account for over 5% of global mobile users.
• Over 250m handsets were shipped during the quarter, compared to 230m in the previous quarter.
• India now has the fastest growing mobile market in the world.

Posted to the site on 13th December 2006