Pyramid Research released its Q3 2007 Mobile Demand and Mobile Data Forecasts for more than 90 markets globally.
Based on continued strong growth in emerging markets, they have raised their year-end 2007 expectation for mobile phone subscriptions from 3.26 billion in the Q2 2007 release of their forecast to 3.3 billion.
The result is a 1 percent increase in Pyramid's expectation for global mobile penetration at the end of 2007, from 50 percent previously to 51 percent in their Q3 2007 release.
Per their latest forecast release, they expect mobile phone operators to generate a combined $760 billion in 2007, up from $669 billion in 2006. Going forward, they expect global mobile penetration to top 69 percent in 2012, with 4.7 billion subscribers generating $1 trillion in service revenue for operators worldwide.
Between 2007 and 2012, the number of mobile phone subscriptions will increase from 3.3 billion to 4.7 billion, a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5 percent.
Africa and the Middle East as well as Asia will account for the biggest subscriber gains, while Western and Eastern Europe will see its share of the global subscriber base shrink.
By 2012, more than two-thirds of the world's population will have a mobile subscription, up from half in 2007 and only a third in 2005.
Of the twenty fastest-growing mobile phone markets in the world, all but three come from either Africa or Latin America.
