The vast majority of new mobile subscriber additions, between now and 2020, will come from developing markets, with GSMA Intelligence putting this figure as high as 93 percent.
In 2015, there were just under five billion unique mobile subscribers according to GSMA Intelligence and Ericsson.
GSMA Intelligence forecasts that by 2020, there will be 5.6 billion unique mobile subscribers globally, more than the number of people with electricity at home (5.3 billion), bank accounts (4.5 billion) or running water (3.5 billion).
According to Ovum, total mobile subscriptions will grow to 8.5 billion by the end of 2019, with GSMA Intelligence and Ericsson forecasting this will grow to 9 billion by 2021, of which 85 percent will be mobile broadband subscriptions and over 66 percent will be smartphone subscriptions.
The International Telecommunications Union forecasts that the total number of mobile-broadband subscriptions will reach 3.6 billion by end 201617, suggesting almost half of all mob
India already has overtaken the United States to become the world’s second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China’s 721 million.
But a new report released today by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development also confirms that just six nations–including China and India–together account for 55 percent of the total global population still offline.
