1 billion GSM users around the world!

The GSM Association (GSMA) has announced crossing the one billion connections mark and said the feat was achieved a month ahead of the target time. The historic milestone has been reached in 12 years since the first network was launched.

A release from the GSMA said more than one billion people or one in every six person in the world are now using GSM mobile phones.

"Throughout its relative short history, GSM has regularly beating growth forecasts," said Rob Conway, CEO, GSMA and member of its board.

Conway also said that the fixed line telephony companies had taken more than a century to install one billion phone lines, while GSM has connected its first billion users in just 12 years, improving and saving the lives of millions of people along the way.

According to a white paper published by Deutsche Bank, global revenues attributable to GSM totaled $277 billion in '03 and is expected to grow to $500 billion in '05.

The paper titled "Brilliant Past, Bright Future, describes the evolution of mobile phones from a niche business to one of the largest and most important industries in the world.

GSMA also said that there are more GSM mobile handsets in daily use than the total number of personal computers and televisions combined.

Driven by GSM, the number of mobile subscribers exceeded the number of fixed telephone lines for the first time in 2003.

In the last twelve months alone, GSM added 198 million new users - more than the CDMA had in its global customer base at the end of the year.

It is also estimated that at least 85 per cent of the world's next generation wireless customers will use the GSM family of technologies - GSM/GPRS, EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM), 3GSM - for both voice and data needs.

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(The correspondent is on a sponsored trip to Cannes)