Mobile Users Outnumber Fixed-Line Customers

Figures from eMarketer’s Wireless World report show that fixed lines increased by almost 60% between 1995 and 2002 as the global telecoms network evolved. However this growth was dwarfed by that of wireless. Mobile phone subscribers totalled 90.7 million in the mid-nineties but this number had soared to 1.14 billion by the end of last year.

In underdeveloped countries in Asia and South America, where the fixed-line infrastructure is substandard, mobile phones are seen as the most economic means of communication. This partly explains the phenomenol growth of mobile phone users on the planet in the past decade. With sales nearing saturation in Western markets, the developing world is becoming ever more attractive to mobile manufacturers and operators (see Mobile Phone Sales Climb Again).

Global Phone Subscriptions (m)
	1995	2001	2002
Fixed-Line Phones	689.3	1046.1	1100.0
Mobile Phones	90.7	946.3	1143.6
Source: ITU, 2003

The ITU claims that 36.35% of the global population had access to a phone in 2002, up from 28.74% in 2000. This growth is being driven almost exclusively by the adoption of mobile handsets and at the current rate of progress, 50% of the world’s population will have a phone by 2005.