70 million people will be using mobiles for navigation by 2014

By 2014, 70 million people will be navigating by using their mobile phones. That's the conclusion of a new research report from Berg Insight. They say the number of mobile customers downloading routes using their handsets is expected to grow by 27.9% per year from 16 million users in 2008 to 70 million users in 2014. Revenue from subscriptions and advertisements is expected to grow by 22.4% per year during the same period, hitting €597 million in 2014. [Press release]

186 million machines using mobile networks by 2012

A new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight says the number of mobile network connections used for machine-to-machine communication will grow from last year's total of 37.5 million to 186 million connections in 2012; a growth rate of around 38% per year. In general, between 1–3% of mobile subscribers in developed markets are actually non-human users, although this is closer to 10% in Sweden and Finland where the mobile network is used instead of human 'meter readers'. However, Berg Insight reckons that vehicle connections will cause most growth in the future. [Press release]