Mobile connections surpass 4 billion mark worldwide

The number of connections on mobile phone networks has crossed the 4 billion mark worldwide, industry association GSMA said on Wednesday, forecasting further growth to 6 billion by 2013. The number of connections does not translate directly into the number of users, however, because in many mature markets, one user may have two mobile phones, or a phone and a mobile data device, which would both count as two connections. In Western Europe, about a fifth of connections are estimated to be due to one user having more than one device, a figure that probably applies to many developed markets, a GSMA spokesman said. In developing countries, by contrast, phones are often shared.