Mobile phone subscriptions to overtake global population by 2015

By early 2015, there would be more mobile phone subscribers than the world's population, thanks to rapid growth in India, China and Burma, according to a report by Swedish technology giant Ericsson.

As per the report released in London on Tuesday, of the 6.8 billion global mobile subscriptions in the first quarter of 2014, 790 million were in India.

The global figures included the addition of 120 million new subscriptions in the first quarter. The global growth was led by India with 28 million new subscriptions during this period.

According to the projections in the report, mobile subscriptions would hit 7 billion by the end of 2014, and overtake the world's population of 7.2 billion in early 2015.

The year 2016 would see the number of smartphone subscriptions exceed those for basic phones and by 2019 the number of smartphone subscriptions would be expected to reach 5.6 billion.

Smartphone sales in India shot to 44 million units in 2013 from 16.2 million in 2012.

By the end of 2019, mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to account for over 80 per cent of all mobile subscriptions, as against around 30 per cent in 2013.

Mobile broadband too would gain a larger share of total broadband subscriptions across many markets, complementing fixed broadband, and in certain segments replacing it.

LTE's share of mobile subscriptions would stand at 85 per cent in North America in five years, outpacing Europe where the 4G technology would have a 30 per cent share, according to a report from telecom vendor Ericsson.

Continuing its robust growth, LTE subscriptions reached 240 million, in the first three months of the year, with around 35 million new additions. The increasing popularity of the technology is being helped by the launch of more commercial networks around the world and the availability of cheaper handsets.

By 2019, the number of LTE subscriptions would be 2.6 billion and by that time population coverage in Europe would have grown to around 80 per cent, however, the region would only see an LTE subscription penetration of 30 per cent as against 85 per cent in North America, Ericsson said.

LTE penetration had already reached over 30 per cent in Japan by the end of last year and  over 50 per cent in South Korea-the highest in the world.

However though LTE was becoming more common, the report went on put its popularity in some context. The technology's share of the total number of mobile subscriptions (6.8 billion) stood at 3.5 per cent during the first quarter and by 2019, LTE's share would be around 28 per cent as against 49 per cent for 3G connections based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and (High Speed Packet Access) HSPA.