1000000000, that’s an incredible one billion, mobile subscribers have been added to the global population of cell phone users over the past four years alone. Seeing as Gartner feels mobile users in India are likely to reach 815 million before we move into 2015, a large part of the aforementioned number comes from these shores.
In fact, the country welcomed a whopping 5.54 million new GSM subscribers in August 2014 itself, according to the figures provided by Cellular Operators Association of India. On a larger scale, mobile users worldwide were revealed to total up to 3.2 billion, at an industry event held in Dubai recently.
3.2 billion is practically half of the present population on our planet Earth. Out of these numbers, more than 1 billion devices owned by mobile subscribers globally are smartphones. And the elements that power them all to achieve their maximum potential are the Internet and applications, of course.
The penetration of applications in each and every sphere of life starting from shopping to social networking to job hunting has changed the way we function as well as interact with the world. Almost 10.5 million jobs are supported by the mobile ecosystem alone, reveals a post on IBNLive.
Also Read: Gartner expects mobile user base in India to touch 815 million this year
The Saudi mobile handset market boasts of being the largest in the Middle East region. It also manifests one of the highest mobile penetration rates in the globe and had 53 million subscriptions by 2013. By this reckoning, it had a mobile penetration rate of 181.6 percent or 2 cell phones per user.
We’ll be hearing more on the raging trends and opportunities in mobile at the 3rd edition of the ArabNet Riyadh digital gathering that’s to be held in Saudi Arabia. It will be convened between November 11 and 13, 2014.