GSM World reports on its website, confirming an earlier MTM post, that mobile telephony on the planet is growing at an astounding rate. In fact, GSMA, the organization representing worldwide GSM carriers, manufacturers and others in the wireless industry, says that Africa, alone, added 70 million mobile connections during the past year in an area the size of France. Africa now has over 282 million mobile phone users--more than the United States. Due to only 35 million landlines in Africa, carriers' network coverage is rapidly growing to meet mobile demand. (Check out the live "mobile counter" on GSM World's home page. When I started writing this post, the number of GSM mobile connections worldwide was 3,084,070,509--that's THREE BILLION+.
Why is this happening? Why is wireless growing at double-digit rates globally? It boils down to three reasons: lack of landlines in many parts of the world or disconnected landlines among users who have adopted cell phones for all voice communications; carrier network expansion in emerging countries (Africa, Mexico and elsewhere) and cheaper handsets.
In the U.S., Verizon and other major landline carriers are losing millions of landline connections daily because an increasing number of customers are using cell phones exclusively. As customers add data plans to their service, application developers, spurred on by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, are developing innovative mobile applications at a frenetic pace.
Mobile is not just hot....it's boiling.
By the way, since I starteed writing this post, GSM World's total mobile connections rose to 3,084,115,307--an increase of 44,798 mobile lines added within 30 minutes.
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