LONDON-Supporters of GSM, including the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) and the GSM Association, celebrated as the technology’s subscriber base reached 500 million last week.
“In the last 12 months, GSM has achieved a major foothold both in North and South America,” Alan Hadden, president of GSA, commented. “This demonstrates that it is the most successful mobile platform, offering genuinely flexible and open communications to the world’s mobile communities.”
According to the GSM Association, GSM now accounts for more than 70 percent of the world’s digital mobile phones, and its popularity is rapidly growing, not just in Europe, but also in China and the Americas. In fact, with 82.4 million customers, China now has the largest GSM population.
According to Rob Conway, chief executive officer of the GSM Association, there is a secret to this success: the GSM approach. “That is the secret of the success, the technology is successful because the approach is successful-and it is the approach that we are already repeating with the evolving GSM family via GPRS, EDGE, and 3GSM.”
