14 DAY TRIAL // One of the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, Nokia has claimed that they expect the world to have more than 3 billion mobile phone users in the next five years. The Helsinki-based cell phone maker's Senior Vicepresident for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Wali Moneimne, said that currently the company "owns one-third of the global mobile phone market", but did not disclose how they plan to take on the competition in the coming years as they see more growing markets, especially in Asia.
The company dominates the markets with their mobile phone products and is now focusing on increasing their share in the North American market. Nokia said that expanding mobile phone coverage to the developing world is a key issue to improve connectivity and enhance the growth in the market.
While speaking at the World Summit on the Information Society, Tom Phillips, Head of the GSM Association, said in a statement: "Four billion people have never made a mobile phone call." He also said that, in spite of the fact that around 80% of the world's population resides in areas covered by mobile phone networks, only one-quarter actually make use of it. Phillips said taxes, regulation and the high cost of phones were obstacles to growth in the developing world.
Veli Sundback, another Nokia Senior Vicepresident present at the conference, said that growth of cellphone use has proved extraordinarily robust: ?two years ago, we set a target of 2008 for getting 2 billion users, and we achieved that in September".