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Mobile phone subscriptions overtake world population


david manners
14th November 2014

IC Insights – cellular subscriptions
Next year there will be more mobile phone subscriptions than people, says IC Insights.
This is because many people have more than one phone or SIM card.
In 2015, the worldwide population is expected to reach 7.4 billion while the number of cellphone subscriptions is forecast to be slightly over 7.5 billion, marking the first time cellphone subscriptions will exceed the worldwide population, says IC Insights.
In some regions of the world, cellphone subscription penetration rates now greatly exceed 100% of the population (Russia 185%; Italy 151%; Brazil 141%; Germany 140%; U.K. 128%).
One reason that subscriptions exceed a country’s population is that many users purchase different SIM cards and therefore different phone numbers for cities they often visit (to get cheaper phone rates). Each of these SIM cards is considered another subscription.
Thus, although the end-of-2014 penetration rate for Russia is expected to be 185%, it is estimated that the true penetration rate – the actual percentage of the population that has a cellphone subscription – will probably be about 70% at the end of this year.
In addition to the effect of SIM cards, there is also an increasing percentage of the population  carrying two cellphones, typically one for business and one for personal use.
Overall, IC Insights estimates that there are 4.4 billion unique cellphone users in the world today, representing about 60% of the 7.3 billion world population in 2014.
The CAGR of cellular subscriptions from 1999-2018 is forecast to be 16%. However, as the unique subscriber base in many regions moves toward saturation, the average annual growth rate of unique subscribers is forecast to slow significantly.
The annual increase in unique cellular phone subscribers is believed to have peaked in 2006 at 362 million. Since then, the number of new unique subscribers added to the user base has slowed.
IC Insights forecasts that the number of new unique cellular subscribers in 2018 will be only about 100 million, less than one-third of the 362 million subscribers that were added 12 years earlier in 2006.
One trend that will help keep cellphone/smartphone sales strong and partially offset the decline in the growth rate of unique cellular subscribers is the movement of cellphone users to own more than one phone.
While multi-phone users are forecast to be a minority portion of the market over the next few years, their numbers will be increasing. In the long run, an increasing number of additional multi-phone cellular subscribers are expected to continue to help boost future cellphone handset sales.
- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/ne...orld-population-2014-11/#sthash.jLJjCf3l.dpuf