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5-Billion Mobile Phones in Use By End of Year, UN Predicts

5:56 pm on February 15, 2010 | Category: Cell Phones, Mobile Devices, Wireless

There are now 4.6 billion active mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and the number will hit 5 billion by the end of 2010, according to a new report by the United Nations’ telecom agency.

In recent years, growth of the global wireless market has been fueled by high rates of adoption in developing countries, where most people use a mobile handset as their primary phone.

“Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” said Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

“The simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world,” Toure added, noting that many customers use mobile technology to remind them of medical appointments or get instructions for taking medication.

For more complicated applications, mobile broadband connections are often necessary. These connections, which use powerful data technology such as HSPA, are also surging in popularity. The number of mobile broadband users is expected to grow from 600 million to 1 billion over the course of this year.

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