Ericsson Mobility Report February 2014 shows world mobile subscriptions grew to 6.7 Bn by December 2013 with the number of subscribers standing at 4.5 billion. World mobile penetration (subscriptions per head of population) grew to 92%.
Mobile Penetration Dec 2013 – Ericsson – Australia is at 133%
Ericsson reported that mobile broadband subscriptions grew by 40% in 2013 to 2.1 billion and that total data traffic on mobile networks grew by 70% over the same period.
World Mobile Network Data – Ericsson – 1 Peta Byte = 1 Million Giga Bytes
In 2013 around 1 billion smartphones were sold accounting for 60% of phones sold. At the end of 2013 smartphones accounted for 30% of phones in use. As the number of smartphones continues to rise rapidly the volume of data traffic on mobile networks (2 PetaBytes per month in December 2013) will increase evenfaster than the current 70% p.a.
Ericsson points to the revolution in mobile networks underway in emerging economies which they say will see world subscriptions on 2G networks, dominantly used for voice and SMS, go from the current 73% to a point in 2019 when 80% of subscriptions will be on 3G and 4G mobile data capable networks. In these emerging economies mobile data will be far and away the dominant internet access mechanism.