Demand for mobile phones continues to grow

We have some new numbers on mobile phone usage - globally and here in the Asian region.

Gartner Research reports that "153m mobile phone handsets were sold in the first three months of 2004,which is 34% up on the same quarter last year,with mobile phone sales for 2004 on track to hit 600m by the end of the year." Already yesterday wsa reported in the AWSJ, that the China government is of the opinion that 25% of the Chinese population is owning a mobile phone by the end of this year - astonishing numbers!!

Another report, this time by IDC (and this is the beauty of reading Asia Business Consulting, since we have that many sources, combining them all for a perfect overview - okay enough of that), forecasts that "30 million people, or 17 per cent of US mobile subscribers, to use the web on phones in 2006,while currently in Japan about 44.8 million people, or 58 per cent of internet users, access the web on their mobile phones. Internet access will be available on most of the approx 600 million mobile phones expected to be sold worldwide this year." Impressive numbers and we look forward to the browser wars on mobile phones.