7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes "Tomi Ahonen's newly released 2014 Almanac reveals such current mobile phone industry data gems as: 'The mobile subscription rate is at or very very nearly at 100%. For 7.1 Billion people alive that means 7.1 Billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.' Compared with other tech industries, he says: 'Take every type of PC, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs and add them together. What do we have? 1.5 Billion in use worldwide. Mobile is nearly 5 times larger. Televisions? Sure. We are now at 2 Billion TV sets in use globally. But mobile has 3.5 times users.' Which mobile phone OS is the leader? ''Android has now utterly won the smartphone platform war with over 80% of new sales. Apple's iPhone has peaked and is in gradual decline at about 15% with the remnant few percent split among Windows, Blackberry and miscellaneous others.'"

Comments

Sanity check

[Russ1642]

Usually when you get a number like this you do a sanity check to make sure it's reasonable. This is so plainly obviously a BS number.

Re:Sanity check

[Bacon Bits]

These are telecommunications companies. Sanity doesn't figure in to their business plan.

Re:Sanity check

[Savage-Rabbit]

These are telecommunications companies. Sanity doesn't figure in to their business plan.

You have clearly never worked for an investment bank.

Re:Sanity check

[Kjella]

You honestly think telcos don't know how many subscribers they have? Everybody I know from age 10 and up has one and personally I've got two phones, one for home and one for work. In my case it's because my employer's policy is very strict on mixing work related records with random apps that could compromise the phone. So does a friend of mine so he can hand the "work phone" to someone else when he's away, because that's the number many people call. It doesn't take many of us to add up to >100% of the population.

Re:Sanity check

[schnell]

It's got nothing to do with that. As the GP said, this is a total BS interpretation of the statistic. In wireless telco parlance, a "subscriber" is just an active SIM, not a person. So the total # of "subscribers" among mobile systems includes not just cellular phones but also cellular wireless enabled laptops/tablets/Kindles; all the cars out there with OnStar or something similar; every truck or car with a wireless fleet tracker; every cargo container or physical asset that has a wireless location/anti-theft tracker; every FedEx driver who has a cellular-enabled signature capture reader; every utility meter or security camera with a cellular data link... the list goes on and on. "7.1 billion" is probably more like 1/2 people with phones and 1/2 "things" with cellular connections.

Re:Sanity check

[MarkRose]

Didn't you mean to say.... a phony number?

Re:Sanity check

[CanHasDIY]

.. or the RIAA.

Re:Sanity check

[Em Adespoton]

You honestly think telcos don't know how many subscribers they have? Everybody I know from age 10 and up has one and personally I've got two phones, one for home and one for work. In my case it's because my employer's policy is very strict on mixing work related records with random apps that could compromise the phone. So does a friend of mine so he can hand the "work phone" to someone else when he's away, because that's the number many people call. It doesn't take many of us to add up to >100% of the population.

I think telcos know how many subscribers they have -- I also think telcos don't know how many telcos there are globally. Among other things I think, I think this is likely the number of SIM cards produced to date, not active subscribers, and I think that people who work for telcos probably have a disproportionately large number of subscriptions.

I really have no problem with the stats on phone subscriptions, even though I'm pretty sure it's a projection that treats all parts of the world equal. However, their jump to "almost every person in the world has a phone" is silly, as I'm pretty sure that, just pulling a figure out of my head, that at least 40% of the people in the world don't have a cell phone. This number is borne out by the fact that there are many people who have two, and many businesses have "fleet subscriptions" that are not all in use. Plus you have to factor in all the test subscriptions, phone cards sold at 7-11, lost/stolen/abandoned phones that have a stored value subscription but aren't actually in use, etc.

I know of at least 8 people who don't have a cell phone, and at least 8 people who have 2+.

What IS interesting, is that cellphones have somehow become the great equalizer. they cross all ethnicity/education/location/wealth barriers -- even homeless people have cell phones these days.

However, if the telcos are trying to paint this as "look at this great market!" I'd like to point out that capitalism works by exploiting new growth markets. Sounds like what they're saying is that the market is almost saturated -- which if true (it isn't, but follow along) means that telcos are about to flatline on profits. No more YoY growth. This should be somewhat worrying to them.

Re: Sanity check

[tysonedwards]

Actually, the "computer" count in the article was based on CPUs (x86 Processors from Intel and AMD) manufactured and sold through according to their financials, and made an assumption of one processor per "computer". So, unless you built your desktops upon PowerPC, Sparc or ARM, you've been counted. And on the phone front, it also refers to "Active Lines of Service" (billed phone numbers). Would be interesting to see the breakdown on a per country basis (even if only the biggies) to see "active lines of service" / "total population" = x

Re:Sanity check

[coolsteve]

From the article:

MOBILE SUBCRIBERS END OF 2013
Total active mobile subscriptions or accounts -7.1B (was 6.7B in 2011, growth 6%)
Unique mobile users - 4.5 B (was 4.3B in 2011, growth 5%)
Actual mobile phones in use - 5.4 B (was 5.2B in 2011, growth 4%)

Not quite sure what that means... There are more active subscriptions than actual phones in use? Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

Re:Sanity check

[Immerman]

Actually mobile phones are quite common in the developing world, where they represent a minimal investment in infrastructure and an enormous profit advantage to a canny user. Probably nowhere near 100%, but I think I heard a number around 1-in-3 or so recently, and that's among the poor agrarian communities.

As for cost - I've personally used a mobile phone for ~$8/month for years ($25 prepaid card, expires after 90 days), or $0.28/day - and that's a prepaid plan in the US, which probably makes it one of the most expensive plans in the world. Granted that doesn't allow for a lot of usage, but I don't talk on the phone recreationally so it works out fine.

Re:Sanity check

[Chris Mattern]

Speaking of sanity check, more people have cell phones than access to clean toilets. That, indeed, is crazy.

But understandable. Building out and maintaining a wireless phone infrastructure is much easier and cheaper than doing so for a sewer system.

Re:Sanity check

[locofungus]

In Europe, it's common for people who travel frequently abroad to have a sim for a local provider in each country they visit.

On some bits of the south coast of England, some people get better (or only) reception from France. They have a sim for France which they put in their phone when they're at home and a UK sim for when they're out to avoid accidental roaming charges when at home.

Re:Sanity check

[TubeSteak]

Not quite sure what that means... There are more active subscriptions than actual phones in use? Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

In the developing world, it's very common for calling to be cheap in-network and expensive if you call someone on a different cellular provider.
The end result is everyone has two phones or dual sim phones.
Even triple and quad sim phones have been on the market for a while now.

It's not something that internationally known manufacturers were at all interested in,
but companies like Motorola, HTC, Samsung and Nokia have finally joined the Chinese in manufacturing them.

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

Lots of people without indoor toilets now have mobile phones.

Re: Sanity check

[petermgreen]

Note that "active lines of service" is likely to be significantly more than the number of phones in regular use since in many countries it costs very little to keep an old phone active on payg.

Re:Sanity check

[Andrewkov]

And some of those mobile phones end up in toilets .. and the user says the phone stopped working and possibly has "water damage", while not mentioning that whole toilet incident...

Not that I'm speaking from experience..

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

I assume you're trolling.

If not, it flush toilets require a massive amount of infrastructure spending that is not available in lots of places. Cell service can be rolled out to a large number of people much more easily. This if often the case in India and southeast Asia. Last time I checked, there were minimal Negros in that part of the world.

Re:Sanity check

[MNNorske]

I personally account for:
- One person cell phone
- One work issued cell phone
- One medical device that has a cellular connection to a service provider
- One security system that has a mobile module in it
- Two kindles, one 2nd generation, and one DX both of which connect via cellular

So right there I account for six "subscriptions."

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

And individual can't buy a flush toilet. An individual can buy a phone.

What this means

[Presto Vivace]

for my profession (public relations) is that if you don't have a mobile strategy, you don't have a communications strategy at all.

Re:What this means

[bluefoxlucid]

Public Relations is not marketing. Marketing deals with products; public relations deals with relation to customers and the public at large.

Marketing revolves around how to dress up Tide, how to convince the consumer they want Tide, what markets Tide aims at, what the advertising strategy is for Tide, and so on. These center around products, demographics, and how demographics connect to products.

Public relations instead revolves around Tide Co, how to convince the customer that Tide Co isn't an evil asshole company dumping sludge onto farmland in India, how much transparency Tide Co should have to keep customer trust, when Tide Co's ethics committee has come off its nut and is trying to create a PR nightmare by doing something that will reflect extremely negatively on Tide Co, etc. These center around the company, demographics, and the public at large.

The difference is subtle, but simple. Marketing tries to sell products. Public relations tries to make sure the company both actively creates rapport with the public (customers or not) and avoids offending the public. Good PR is about ethics and transparency; good marketing is about selling shit.

As an example: Apple has good PR. Their company is environmentally responsible, they're aware of their business operations, they communicate to the world at large through exciting and entertaining public appearances, and so on. Their marketing is less successful: more people bought Motorola, Samsung, and LG phones with Google software; who in the hell gets excited over Google and Samsung?

10 years ago, you needed an electronics communications strategy. It wasn't enough to market things on TV and in news papers; you needed to get customers on mailing lists, to tell them about what's happening in the company (not products, but exciting growth and customer outreach programs), and to give them exclusive insider deals or promotions or whatever. You couldn't just put "iPhone, SALE $299 REG $399" in the paper; you had to make the customer a part of your communications network, make them feel like you're talking specifically to them. Now it's mobile apps.

Just waiting...

[ramper]

For the US Supreme Court to decide that each individually US activated device is a person AND can contribute to campaign finance.

Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[swb]

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Apple's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Apple faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Apple because Apple is dying. Things are looking very bad for Apple. As many of us are already aware, Apple continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Now where have I heard something like this before?

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[BoRegardless]

Android is taking over but taking over what? The Yugos & Fiats of the phone world. And Android is, well, fragmented into a huge number of pieces and continuing to fragment & suffer a huge amount of malware-security & upgradability issues. The question is who will take over Android and turn it into a long term stable, safe platform is it Tizen?

Articles like this are sensationalism, pure and simple.

Apple knows that in the end hardware & the OS is only part of the "mobile phone industry". The UI, app developers, content, content delivery and ease of use are the extra pieces that make a smartphone.

People exist who still only want to place phone calls 90+% of the time and they couldn't care less about anything but a cheap phone, texting and a bit of email. They simply won't be able to buy a "feature phone" soon, because few of those will be made.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[PapayaSF]

Apple and it's users said the same thing when they were getting their ass handed to them in the PC market. Microsoft is the low end crap. It's fragmented over tons of hardware. It has security issues. Apple has a vertical structure that will win in the end. It's hilarious for those of us who suffered through the Apple of the late 90's to read this regurgitation of talking points...

Dude, your comment reads like it's from the late '90s. Since then, Microsoft has been largely stagnant, their tablet and phone offerings largely a failure, the "inevitable" Windows monopoly doesn't look so inevitable any more, and OS X's share has grown. Macbooks are a very large percent of laptop sales, even to enterprise, and if you count tablets as computers, Apple's worldwide market share is about 19.5%, bigger than HP and Dell combined. Not to mention Apple getting the lion's share of profits.

So it looks like vertical structure is doing pretty well. As for mobile, sure, lots of Android phones are being sold, many (most?) to people who are entering the smartphone market. But more people are switching from Android to Apple than the other way around, so despite the drop in smartphone market share, Apple is quite well-positioned to continue growing.

Bad assumptions...

[Bomarc]

Several bad assumptions were caught -- however one that I've not seen (yet) is the assumption that all the cell phone are "smart" (aka latest tech features form and function). I for one don't want one (if you gave it to me I'd quickly sell it before it was stolen). I also know of many people that don't want one. Many of us like our old desktop/laptop/server. I'm also not into the idea of sharing my phone when I want to watch TV.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Verdatum]

I worked developing mobile telecom equipment for a company that mostly sells to undeveloped countries. This is sort of true in that undeveloped nations often don't have a land-line network in place, and it is far easier to set up a wireless network. So people are more likely to have a mobile phone than a stationary phone. However, impoverished people still don't have phones. It ends up being interesting because the standard Western usage models for phones don't work out at all. We can't calculate the number of available channels needed per subscriber the same way. Many mobile phones in these areas will be involved in active calls nearly 24 hours a day. The reason why is that people will buy a phone and account, and then hire people in shifts to stand on the street corner shouting out that they've got a phone. They then let people make calls for a markup.

Not a BS number

[mcrbids]

That there are as many active mobile devices as there are people doesn't mean that everybody has a mobile device. And the reality is that mobile devices actually are ubiquitous, and the 7.1 billion number understates their ubiquity, since many devices are wifi only.

I type this on my Linux laptop that I use for work, but outside of some gaming, mobile devices have taken the crown for personal use. Mostly, I browse on my smart phone. I schedule on my smart phone. I email on my smart phone. My "TV" is actually a Google TV Stick running android. I frequently take a tablet with me when I travel, just so I can plug the hotel room HDMI into it and watch what I want, rather than "what's on".

Mobile devices are everywhere, and still growing fast, and have completely up-ended the computer marketplace. This trend will continue and even if you knock the number in half, it still stomps the every loving *!@#$* out of the classical desktop "computer".

Phones != unique users

[damn_registrars]

The biggest problem with this is the number of people with multiple phones. I know many people who have their personal phones as well as phones from their employer for work.