Number of mobile devices in the world has surpassed human numbers, new report claims.
According to data from digital analysts at GSMA Intelligence, the number of active mobile devices across the world is higher than the total human population.
This is for the first time that electronic gadgets, many of these also happen to be considered “smart,” has reached such a milestone. While the number of active mobile gadgets currently stands at 7.22 billion, there are somewhere between 7.19 and 7.2 billion people in the world.
The rapid speed at which the global mobile network is growing suggests that the crossover might have occurred somewhere around the 7.19 billion mark.
The report claims that gadgets like tablets, smartphones and mobile phones are multiplying five times faster than world’s human population which is growing at a rate of about two people per second, or 1.2 percent annually.
“No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone. It’s the fastest growing manmade phenomenon ever – from zero to 7.2 billion in three decades,” said Kevin Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask & Co.
Kimberlin’s company backs Millicom, a startup that works alongside Facebook and Internet.org to establish mobile connections in the developing world.
Leonard Gubar, Director of Millicom, called out the mobile phone as “miraculous.” He said “Today, you can do everything with a mobile phone.”
It’s not that every person in the world has a mobile device, but the statistics suggests a fair few people in the developed world are using more than one Sim card. Furthermore, GSMA’s data also takes into consideration machine-to-machine networks, the mobile devices that communicate exclusively with other devices like cars and smart meters.
