---
title: "3.3 Billion Mobile Phone Subscriptions; 35% of US Tweens Own a Mobile phone"
date: 2007-12-03
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2007"
    url: "/tag/2007.md"
---

# 3.3 Billion Mobile Phone Subscriptions; 35% of US Tweens Own a Mobile phone

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512im_/http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1291/813193803_5490808013_m.jpg)A couple of amazing stats have been released about mobile phone use. Firstly industry analyst Informa Telecoms & Media [revealed recently](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512/http://blog.telecoms.com/2007/11/29/global-mobile-penetration-hits-50/) that worldwide mobile penetration will hit 50 per cent – or around 3.3 billion subscriptions. Informa estimated that mobile networks covered 90 per cent of the global population by mid-2007. According to the Telecoms Blog, this means that some 40 per cent of the world’s inhabitants are covered by a network, but not connected – which leaves just 10 per cent with neither coverage nor connection. [Tomi T Ahonen noted](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512/http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2007/12/33-billion-mobi.html) that this means mobile growth is accelerating, as we were at 2.7 billion subscribers at the end of 2006.

In other mobile stats, the Nielsen Company today [released the findings](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512/http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-03-2007/0004715443&EDATE=) of a study on the mobile media and cross media behavior of U.S. “tweens” (ages 8-12). It found that an estimated 35% of tweens own a mobile phone. Fellow RWW author Josh Catone noted that he first got a mobile phone at age 17. I won’t reveal when I got *my* first mobile phone, but it’s fair to say that when I was a teen mobile phones resembled bricks!

According to Nielsen, 5% of tweens access the Internet over their phone each month. While 41% of tween mobile Internet users say they do so while commuting or traveling (to school, for example), mobile content such as the Internet is also a social medium for this audience: 26% of tween mobile Internet users say they access the web while at a friend’s house and 17% say they do so at social events.

So we ask again: [is the Mobile Web finally set to take off?](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_the_mobile_web_finally_set_to_take_off.php) You betcha! Although if [last week’s poll](https://web.archive.org/web/20091002064512/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_are_you_using_the_mobile_web.php) is anything to go by, there is still a long way to go before a majority of people (in the western world at least) use their mobile phones to surf the Web – our poll indicated that over 40% rarely or never use the Mobile Web. That will surely change over the next year or so, but it’s still relatively early in that adoption curve.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/33_billion_mobile_phone_subs\criptions.php))*