Ericsson Mobility Report August 2014 reports that world mobile subscriptions have grown to 6.8 billion by June 2014 and that mobile broadband subscriptions included in this number reached 2.4 billion.
Ericsson say that there are 4.6 billion unique mobile subscribers so clearly dual SIM and multi device customers are common.
Driven by increased smartphone penetration and mobile broadband devices Ericsson say data traffic increased by 60% from June 2013 to June 2014.
Growing at around 6% annually world subscriptions Ericsson predict will grow to 9.2 billion by 2019. By then 28% of subscriptions will be 4G LTE.
In Australia service numbers have been flat for the last year to June 2014 at 30.6 million and declined by 200,000 over the two years to June 2014.
Over the four years to June 2014 Telstra has gained 12% of market share to 52.2%, Optus has lost 2% and VHA has lost 10% to 16.8%.