Global mobile subscribers to cross 6 billion, Pakistan ranks 9th

The Asia-Pacific region is responsible for the bulk of the growth, with the region accounting for 50% of all connections by the end of the year. PHOTO: FILE

The world mobile industry is set for another milestone. According to the latest forecasts from Wireless Intelligence, the total number of mobile connections across the world will cross six billion by the end of 2011, which means that the industry will have added one billion connections in 16 months.

The total number of connections is set to hit 6.07 billion by the year’s end, with the six billion mark expected to be reached by late November.

The Asia-Pacific region is responsible for the bulk of the growth, with the region accounting for 50% of all connections by the end of the year. The growth in the region is being spurred on by India and China, the two largest markets in the world. They are also set to hit one billion connections early next year.

Asia-Pacific will also be home to six of the ten largest mobile markets in the world. These include:

• China (#1)
• India (#2)
• Indonesia (#4)
• Vietnam (#7)
• Japan (#8)
• and Pakistan (#9)

In other forecasts, Africa will take over the Americas as the second largest regional market. Eastern Europe will also overtake Western Europe in terms of new connections.

Five billion global connections were reached in July 2010, and they came 18 months after the 4 billion milestone in the last months of 2008. The global mobile penetration rate has now increased to 86%, it was 7% at the 5 billion mark and 60% at 4 billion.

Technology wise, GSM is set to dominate with it accounting for 73% of global connections. After GSM, WCDMA/HSPA (16 percent) and CDMA (9 percent) are the major technologies. The remaining 2% will be accounted for by technologies like LTE.

The WCDMA/HSPA technology has been gaining ground and was significant in the growth from 5 to 6 billion connections. GSM still remains the major player in emerging markets such as Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. However its global share was down from 78% to 73% (at the 5 billion connections point).

A version of this post appeared on ProPakistani.pk