MOBILE USERS /OPERATORS DEMOGRAPHY

The world's largest mobile phone operators (based on customer totals) include China Mobile, Vodafone, and China Unicom. In the United States it is currently Cingular Wireless containing around 52 million Customers.

Luxembourg has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2005. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. Around 80% of world's population have mobile phone coverage as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.

At present, Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular subscribers in the world. African markets are expanding nearly twice as fast as Asian markets. The availability of Prepaid or pay as you go services, where the subscriber does not have to commit to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth on a monumental scale, not only in Africa but on other continents as well.

All European nations and most Asian and African nations have adopted GSM. In other countries, such as the United States, Australia, Japan, India and South Korea, legislation does not require any particular standard, and GSM coexists with other standards, such as CDMA and iDEN.

The world's largest mobile phone manufacturers are Audiovox, BenQ-Siemens, High Tech Computer Corporation,Fujitsu,Kyocera, 3G, LG, Motorola,NEC, i-mate, Nokia, Panasonic,Pantech Curitel,Philips, Sagem,Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens ,SK Teletech, Sony Ericsson,Alcatel, T-Mobile, and Toshiba.
NOKIA takes first place