91% of Americans now have a mobile phone subscription, over 1 trillion minutes of talk time was logged over wireless networks in the second half of 2009, and cell phone revenue climbed into the dozens of billions of dollars.
During the annual CTIA Wireless convention in Las Vegas, the mobile phone trade group released its biannual report for the last half of 2009. All sorts of numbers fly around in this report, but they all point to one thing: the wireless industry just keeps climbing higher and higher.
The survey showed that over 285 million Americans now have mobile subscriptions. That’s up 15 million over 2008, and the only reason that growth is tapering off here is that there’s so few people left to add to the statistic.
In just 6 months, 1.12 trillion minutes of talk time. That averages out to 21 minutes per person per day. 822 billion text messages were sent, sending the 2009 total to well over 1.5 trillion.
It really shows just how predominant mobile phones are in the US now. More people own a cell phone than have cable or satellite TV. Around 11% of the population still relies on antenna TV.
“With wireless connections now equal to more than 91 percent of the U.S. population, mobile broadband is pivotal to ensuring all Americans are ‘digitally literate,'” said CTIA CEO Steve Largent.
All of these numbers are the highest they have even been in all the years of CTIA’s survey.
