Global Mobile Subscriptions Penetration Hits 50%

Figures released by industry analysts Informa Telecoms & Media reveal that worldwide mobile subscriptions will hit 3.3bn - equivalent to 50% of the global population - today, just over 26 years since the first mobile network was launched.

Since its birth in 1981, when the first mobile telephony network was switched on in Scandinavia, the now ubiquitous mobile phone has become one of the world's great success stories.

"The mobile industry has constantly outperformed even the most optimistic forecasts for subscriber growth," says Mark Newman, chief research officer, Informa Telecoms & Media. "For children growing up today the issue is not whether they will get a mobile phone, it's a question of when.

"It is difficult to imagine how a modern economy could function without mobile telephony and a number of recent studies have shown that the mobile phone is having a hugely positive impact on the economies of emerging markets."

As of the end of September there were operational networks in 224 countries around the globe, a figure that has increased from 192 in 1997 and 35 in 1987.

Informa estimates that mobile networks covered 90% of the global population by mid-2007. This means that some 40% of the world's inhabitants are covered by a network, but not connected, and leaves just 10% with neither coverage nor connection.