According to the GSMA, worldwide mobile subscriber numbers have hit 5 billion. That’s just actual users — the GSMA says that mobile connections are actually at 7.7 billion. And those figures don’t include machine-to-machine connections like all those connected cows.
The world now has 5bn mobile subscribers – this map shows where they are distributed around the globe pic.twitter.com/rehdYQM2Ft
— GSMA Intelligence (@GSMAi) June 14, 2017
As Mike Quindazzi, managing director at PwC noted, most of the future growth in subscriber numbers is predicted to come from China and India.
By 2020 #China will add 158M new #mobile subscribers, #India will add nearly double! @gsma #EmergingMarkets https://t.co/4jmFREBprq pic.twitter.com/OMC8OSQQmj
— Mike Quindazzi ✨ (@MikeQuindazzi) June 13, 2017
For its part, Ericsson predicts in its new mobility report that an additional 1 million new mobile broadband subscribers will be added per day for the next six years. The report also forecasts that worldwide smartphone subscriptions will almost double during the next six years, growing from 3.9 billion in 2016 to 6.8 billion by 2022. When tablets and feature phones are included, total mobile subscriptions are growing at around 4% year-on-year, reaching 7.6 billion in the first quarter.
An additional 2.6 billion subscribers by the end of 2022! Discover more in the Ericsson Mobility Report 2017. https://t.co/Xe47iAkYnD pic.twitter.com/AumYYUc3VT
— Technology for Good (@EricssonSustain) June 16, 2017
All those users means a heck of a lot of data. Some interesting research covered by Forbes: 7 out of 10 mobile apps share your data with third parties.
Study: 70% of mobile apps share your data with third parties https://t.co/Ob9iDgitw2 pic.twitter.com/rfi4PyhKsO
— Forbes (@Forbes) June 13, 2017
Given that mobile users spend, on average, five hours a day on their phones and the amount of time spent in apps is up 69% year-over-year (Flurry Mobile numbers), that’s a lot of data being shared.
Speaking of a lot of data, BGR spills the beans on a work-around to get unlimited Verizon hot spot data for $50 per month:
There’s a secret way to get unlimited Verizon hotspot data for $50 a month https://t.co/4CouUwq9Pk pic.twitter.com/NpZM65FnVG
— BGR.com (@BGR) June 14, 2017
What’s that I see? A new Verizon flip phone? I thought that someone must’ve mistaken #TBT for Friday, but nope. Verizon is now selling the LG Exalt LTE for $168 (retail price) — and as Android Life notes, this is an LTE-only device. No 3G fallback. It’s an LTE, LTE, LTE, LTE world.
Our LTE-only future is drawing near at Verizon. https://t.co/3WUt5Om68Z
— Droid Life (@droid_life) June 16, 2017
