It's a trillion-dollar industry

Cheer up, everyone. Annual revenue from mobile phone customers globally will exceed a trillion US dollars by 2013 (that's twelve zeroes), when there'll be more than 5.3 billion customers. In fact, by the end of 2013, revenue from mobile operators is expected to be up a third since the beginning of this year - and customer numbers will be up 56%. Needless to say, most of those new customers won't be coming from North America and Western Europe but from the Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin American markets. The figures - from Informa Telecoms & Media - also say voice revenue will make up the majority of that $1.03 trillion figure, although data revenue will more than double from $148 billion in 2007 to $347 billion in 2013. [Source: Telecoms.com]

4 billion worldwide mobile users this year

Informa Telecoms & Media has calculated there will be 4 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide by the end of this year. However, it says the five billionth subscription won't be connected until the end of 2011. The International Telecommunications Union agrees with the 4 billion figure... and this ties in with figures from Portio Research, who say 5.8 billion people - 80% of the world's population - will be using mobiles by the end of 2013. [Sources: Telecoms.com; ITU press release; Portio press release]

Blyk reaches 200,000 customers

A year after it launched, ad-funded virtual network Blyk says it has over 200,000 customers. That's twice as many as the company originally forecast. Word of mouth is a major factor in thi growth, with 6 out of 10 customers joining because of a friend’s recommendation. [Blyk blog]

Over 600 million mobile phones in China

There are now 601 million mobile phone users in China, according to government figures from the end of June 2008. The number of mobile users increased by 53.5 million from January to June, while the number of fixed-line customers fell by 9.3 million to 356 million in the same period. [Source: Forbes.com]

Vodafone publishes Q2 results

Vodafone has published what appears to be a relatively positive set of results for its second quarter of 2008. Overall revenue is up 19.1% to £9.8 billion, data revenue is up 50.6% to £664 million and its proportionate customer base is up 8.5 million to 269 million users worldwide. However, its share price fell amidst concerns about the global economy. [Sources: Press release; ManagementToday.co.uk]

3 plans to double its customer base in 4 years

UK mobile network 3 has said it is aiming to double its customer base (to at least 6.8m) by 2012 - and it plans to double its net revenue as well. [Source: FT.com]

Vodafone now has over 250 million customers worldwide

Vodafone has released a financial statement for the three months to 31st December 2007. It now has 252.3 million 'proportionate' customers worldwide - which include a percentage of customers from companies it has partial control of - and says it hasn't changed its outlook for the current year. Overall revenue is up 15.8% to £9.2 billion, with data revenue up 51.6%.