FEATURE MOBILE PENETRATION
Global mobile
penetration hits 50%
From its birth in 1981, cellular telephony took 19 years to reach 10 per cent
penetration. But the pace has picked up significantly since 2000.
�igures released by industry analyst
Informa Telecoms & Media reveal that
worldwide mobile penetration has hit
50 per cent—or around 3.3 billion subscriptions—just
over 26 years since the first cellular
network was launched.
Since its birth in 1981, when the first mobile
telephony network was switched on in Saudi
Arabia, the 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,” said Mark Newman,
chief research officer at 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 2007 there were
Global mobile penetration: The road to 50 per cent
August 1981
The world’s first cellular
Intel 8088 processor is released in the US at a base
price of $1,565.
0%
1981
network is launched. The
original IBM PC, model
5150, with a 4.77 MHz
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 per cent of the global population by mid-
2007. This means that some 40 per cent of the
world’s inhabitants are covered by a network,
but not connected, and leaves just 10 per cent
with neither coverage nor connection.
Although global mobile penetration—the
number of mobile subscriptions worldwide
—has reached 50 per cent, this does not mean
that half of the 6.6 billion or so people in the
world now have a mobile phone.
A large number of more mature markets
worldwide already have in excess of 100 per
cent mobile penetration, as users increasingly
sign up for more than one subscription, while
emerging markets increasingly provide the bulk
of new additions.
As of the end of September, 59 countries had
mobile penetration of over 100 per cent, while
almost half that figure, 27, had penetration
under 10 per cent.
10%
2000
celebrates her centenary, making her the first member
of the Royal Family to reach their 100th birthday.
42 Mobile Communications International | First for news, best for business
August 2000
Global mobile penetra-
tion reaches 10 per cent.
In Britain, Queen Eliza-
beth, the Queen Mother
The economic difference between the
more mature markets and those in developing
countries is highlighted by the vast
differences in operator average revenue per
user (ARPU).
Kuwaiti operator MTC brings in the highest
ARPU in the world at the equivalent of
$71 per month. But it is followed closely
by Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 UK operation
with an ARPU of $70.55 and Qatar operator
Q-Tel with $69. Japanese operator KDDI
brings in $67.65 per user per month, while
Hutchison’s Austrian operation records and
ARPU of $66.84.
But at the other end of the scale,
Hutchison’s Sri Lankan operator only counts
revenues of $2.83 per user per month, beaten
narrowly by Bangladesh’s PBTL, which operates
under the CityCell brand and has an
ARPU of $2.98. Ukrainian operator Astelit
counts user revenues of $3, as does Pakistan’s
CMPak, while another Bangladeshi
operator, Sheba Telecom, reports an ARPU
of $3.1. �
30%
2005
down to defeat Lindsay Davenport in the longest
ever Wimbledon Ladies’ final of all time.
July 2005
Global mobile penetration
reaches 30 per cent.
Venus Williams, comes
back from match point
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