3G mobile: It's a different league
"'Thanks a billion!' exclaimed the mobile phone industry in 3GSM World Congress at Cannes, France in the last week of February. Nearly 30,000 representatives from operators, vendors, analysts as well as applications and content developers attended this annual event, which coincided with the intake of billionth GSM mobile customer.
Commercially launching in 1992 and eventually spreading over 200 countries, GSM had 970.80 million subscribers by 2003. Adding 180.30 million customers and posting 22.80 percent annual growth, GSM achieved 73 percent penetration in the worldwide digital mobile market last year. Touching the milestone of billionth customer made their evenings more sparkling in the exotic French Riviera."