No, it is accurate

No, it is accurate

Posted Sep 2, 2004 12:03 UTC (Thu) by jonth (subscriber, #4008)
In reply to: No, it is accurate by AJWM
Parent article: Cell Phones: Don't Count Linux Out (Business Week)

Believe it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/28/2004_mobile_phone...

In terms of populations, Europe has the highest mobile phone usage in the world, with something like 60-70% of the population owning a phone. Many of these people will change their phone every year - the contract usually heavily subsidises the phone so it becomes very cheap, and in many cases, free. Many operators also offer a part exchange deal (I've no idea what they use the phones for). I don't have numbers for this, but I'd be surprised if the annual replacement rate was less than 50%.

So, 650m people in Europe, 60% have phones, 50% of them replace their phones: 200m phones just there. And we haven't even thought about China, the US or Japan.

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