The global mobile phone market revenues will top $1.03 trillion by 2013, when the number of subscriptions worldwide will have risen to more than 5.3 billion, according to a market study by Informa Telecoms & Media.
From end-2007 to end-2013, the global mobile market will see huge growth, increasing in size by over half (56 percent).
It took over 20 years to reach 3 billion subscriptions, but another 1.9 billion net additions are forecast in just six years, with the global total nudging past the 5-billion milestone in 2011.
With this extraordinary growth, total annual revenues derived from mobile operators will grow by over a third (33.9 percent), jumping from $769 billion in 2007 to $1.03 trillion six years later.
More than three quarters (78 percent) of global net additions between 2007 and 2013 to come from markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America, which will be the powerhouses of organic growth over the next five years.
Nearly half (47 percent) of the 1.9 billion global net adds will come from just five markets -- India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. By contrast, the mature markets of North America and Western Europe will in total contribute just 8 percent of global net adds, reflecting the high level of saturation in these markets.
Globally, subscription penetration will approach the 75 percent mark in 2013, while some countries will push past the 150 percent barrier -- Romania (152 percent), Russia (153 percent), Italy (168 percent), Ukraine (173 percent) and Greece (183 percent).
Growth in subscriptions (the number of SIM cards) will outstrip growth in subscribers (the number of unique users), pointing to greater multi-SIM ownership.
The global ratio of subscriptions to subscribers will increase from 1.29 in 2007 to 1.32 in 2013. In Western Europe, the ratio will reach 1.55 in 2013, and even higher (1.75) in Eastern Europe.
