Global mobile communications continue to grow at phenomenal rates. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency, expects that some 6.1 million text messages will have been sent out by the end of the year. This translates to almost 200,000 text messages every second!
90 percent of the world’s population now has access to mobile networks. By the end of the year, mobile subscriptions will reach about 5.3 billion with some 3.8 billion of those in the developing world where more traditional communication technologies (such as landlines) are simply being leapfrogged. Having said that, subscription saturation in developed countries averages 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. No wonder growth has slowed down to just 1.6 percent between 2009 and 2010.
Overall web usage is also growing with the ITU expecting that more than 2 billion people will be using the Internet by the end of 2010.