Mobile world has reached another milestone with Internet becoming increasingly mobile. Ericsson, based on industry information, estimates that number of mobile subscription have reached to 5 billion, largely thanks to emerging markets like India and China.

In the year 2000, about 720 million people had mobile subscriptions, less than the amount of users China alone has today. China has nearly 800 million mobile phone subscribers. Mobile broadband subscriptions are growing at similar pace and are expected to amount to more than 3.4 billion by 2015 (from 360 million in 2009).

Ericsson says that 2 million mobile subscriptions are added per day and currently there are more than 500 million 3G subscriptions. Ericsson expects that mobile connections will reach 50 billion within this decade.

Introduction of 4G data networks such as WiMAX and LTE will see more consumers switching to mobile connections for Internet from cable/DSL connections.

Bulk of this growth will come from developing markets in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.