Wireless Intelligence estimates that the 6 billion milestone will be reached in late November and that total global connections will end the year at 6.07 billion. The last 1 billion connections were added in just 16 months.
The world population (of people) will reach 7 billion in October 2011.
The global mobile penetration rate will be 86 percent, up from 74 percent at the 5 billion connections point.
China is forecast to hit the 1 billion mobile connections milestone in May 2012.
India’s wireless population is about 600 million subscribers in 2011. Previous estimates had included about 250 million inactive accounts.
Digitimes Research projects Apple to take the top spot among global smartphone vendors for the entire calendar year of 2011, leading the way with nearly 19% of the market at 86.4 million units. Apple is projected to easily top Nokia, whose shipments appear set to drop 25% to under 75 million.
The total number of smartphones shipped in 2011 is projected to be 462 million.
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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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