Personal Computers Outnumbered by Mobile Phones

There are now over 5 billion mobile phone connections in the world. According to Wireless Intelligence, more than a billion of these connections were only added in just 18 months. In countries where there is more than one connection per individual, the device penetration exceeded 100% thus making mobile phones the most popular consumer device in the world – 3 times the amount of personal computers. This figure is even more remarkable considering that earlier predictions, when the first mobile companies launched, fall way short of these amounts.

Today, over 30 million mobile handsets are said to be sold in the UK alone, every single year as more adults and even children appear to own one. This surge in demand appears to have contributed to the exponential rise in mobile phone connections from 4 billion at the end of 2008 to 5 billion in less than 2 years and analysts are already predicting an even faster growth to 6 billion by the middle of 2012.

Presently, the Asia-Pacific region which includes China and India remain the main source of growth with around 47% of global mobile connections at the end of June 2010 with penetration in western Europe, eastern Europe and Africa standing at 130%, 123% and 52% respectively.

Talking Point

Why are mobile phones so popular everywhere? The report says that over 10 billion handsets have been sold since 1994, with Nokia selling 3.4 billion. Consequently, about half of the these phones are currently not connected to any network. So then, the question is how many handsets do you have and how many of these are currently connected to a mobile phone network?