Global Cellular Market Passes 1 Billion Subscriber Mark
At the end of last year, there were 952 million mobile users worldwide, according to a report from the research firm, Baskerville. This level was reached on the back of year-on-year growth of 30%, substantially down on 2000's growth of 53%. The report forecasts that the total number of subscribers worldwide will rise to 1.11 billion by the end of this year. Based on global daily net adds of over 422,000, Baskerville predicts that 1 billion-subscriber mark should have been crossed toward the end of April this year.
The first cellular networks (NMT450) were launched in late 1981 in Sweden and Norway by Telia and Telenor, respectively, meaning that it has taken a little more than 20 years to sign up 1 billion users. According to Baskerville, it will only take 7 years to sign up the second billion, with a total of 2.08 billion wireless users forecast to be reached by the end of 2009. That is the equivalent of a global penetration rate of 30.47%.
End-2001 global penetration stood at 15.59%. The Asia-Pacific region was by far the largest cellular market, with 329 million subscribers (44% of these in China). Next was western Europe with 285 million wireless users, then North America (138 million), Latin America (87 million), Eastern Europe (50 million), and the Middle East (36 million) and Africa (27 million).
As the billionth user point approached, the market experienced a sharp slowdown in growth with only Africa and eastern Europe recording rates of more than 50% in 2001, with 58.54% and 78.7%, respectively. Western Europe and North America were at the bottom of the pile with growth rates of 17.09% and 18.05% respectively, preceded by the Middle East (33.15%), Latin America (37.27%) and Asia-Pacific (39.05%).'"
Posted to the site on 8th May 2002
