New figures from 3G Americas, the industry association for GSM vendors and operators for both the north and the south of the continent, show that more than 112 million news subscribers signed up for GSM mobile services in Q3 this year.
The latest sign-ons push the global GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA figures to 1.6 billion � that�s approximately 77.6 percent of the global mobile user base.
�The continuing growth of the GSM family of technologies is unprecedented, and not only in the wireless industry. It was decades before fixed phone lines or even televisions reached more than a billion units sold, while more than 1.6 billion GSM-family customers are talking on cell phones today since the first GSM network launched in 1992,� said 3G Americas� Chris Pearson.
�Now we are seeing a surge in next-generation applications, and even more uses for the wireless mobile device including email, music, Internet browsing, and also mobile television.�
Chris Pearson added that GSM technologies are growing at more than three times the speed of CDMA in the western hemisphere, accounting for 94 percent of net new subscribers over the past year.
The latest sign-ons push the global GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA figures to 1.6 billion � that�s approximately 77.6 percent of the global mobile user base.
�The continuing growth of the GSM family of technologies is unprecedented, and not only in the wireless industry. It was decades before fixed phone lines or even televisions reached more than a billion units sold, while more than 1.6 billion GSM-family customers are talking on cell phones today since the first GSM network launched in 1992,� said 3G Americas� Chris Pearson.
�Now we are seeing a surge in next-generation applications, and even more uses for the wireless mobile device including email, music, Internet browsing, and also mobile television.�
Chris Pearson added that GSM technologies are growing at more than three times the speed of CDMA in the western hemisphere, accounting for 94 percent of net new subscribers over the past year.