There is no doubt that smartphones has exploded into the market making its way into the pockets of users and replacing several desktop and laptops in the process. Mobiles which were a replacement for landline phones have quickly grown from being a device you make a phone call from to becoming a device you can almost do pretty much everything with, at-least in a basic way.
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However, the mobile growth has not yet peaked and it will continue to grow in the coming years. According to a recent study by ABI Research, the total number of active mobile connections is expected to grow to 5 billion by 2010 end.
Most of the growth is expected to be registered in Africa and Asia-Pacific regions. India, which has one of the largest mobile population had already crossed 529 million users sometime back and now has more than 600 million mobile subscribers. At the same time the Africa telecom industry has also been growing at an healthy pace.
In addition to this, developing nations like India and Africa also have several choices with low-end handsets being launched there every day. This in turn makes it easier for people to get their hands on a mobile phone. The 5 billion mobile mark will definitely be a huge milestone, considering that 5 billion people may not even have access to broadband internet.
This number might grow significantly in future when more internet tablets are launched. Though internet devices may not be mobile phones, they are pretty close to the features you can find in one. However, the smartphone growth may not be as dramatic in developing nations due to the cost.
(Network World via Techmeme)
