According to International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the 4 billion mobile subscriber mark was reached in 2008. Our forecasts suggest that the trend is approaching the inflection point. Within a few years, market growth will start decelerating to reach saturation at about 9.4 billion by 2025 (blue dots represent actual data; the red line is produced by a logistic growth function).

Mobile Cellular Phone Subscribers

(million) Year Mobile subscribers Actual Forecast ¹ 1980 0.023482 2.087 1981 0.063585 2.789 1982 0.101509 3.728 1983 0.148855 4.983 1984 0.319252 6.66 1985 0.750629 8.9 1986 1.450136 11.894 1987 2.54527 15.892 1988 4.327956 21.232 1989 7.353071 28.36 1990 11.211543 37.871 1991 16 50.556 1992 23 67.459 1993 34 89.958 1994 56 119.866 1995 91 159.548 1996 145 212.068 1997 215 281.351 1998 318 372.357 1999 490 491.22 2000 738 645.326 2001 961 843.223 2002 1,157 1,094.26 2003 1,417 1,407.78 2004 1,763 1,791.86 2005 2,219 2,251.34 2006 2,757 2,785.74 2007 3,305 3,387.21 2008 4,100 4,039.70 2009 4,719.87 2010 5,400.04 2011 6,052.53 2012 6,654.00 2013 7,188.39 2014 7,647.88 2015 8,031.95 2016 8,345.48 2017 8,596.51 2018 8,794.41 2019 8,948.52 2020 9,067.38 ¹ logistic growth function

Source: ITU - Key Global Telecom Indicators.]

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