• China: 859 million mobile subscribers (64 percent of population) in Dec 2010, up 112 million from 2009. Of these 47 million were 3G mobile phone users (National Bureau of Statistics of China February 2011).
• India: 840.28 million subscribers (70 percent of population) in May 2011, up 223 million from May 2010 (TRAI, June 2010).
• USA: 302.9 million subscribers (96 percent of population) in Dec 2010 (CTIA).
* Half a billion people accessed mobile Internet worldwide in 2009. Usage is expected to double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web.
* Just in China there are 277 million mobile Web users.
* Many mobile Web users are mobile-only, i.e. they do not, or very rarely use a desktop, laptop or tablet to access the Web. Even in the US 25 percent of mobile Web users are mobile-only.
By 2011, over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web.
Almost one in five global mobile subscribers have access to fast mobile Internet (3G or better).
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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