Wireless subscribers top a quarter billion in U.S.

Computerworld - The number of wireless subscribers in the U.S. recently passed 250 million, a number that has quadrupled in the past 10 years, according to the wireless industry's largest trade group, CTIA-The Wireless Association.

Today, the CTIA's Web site put the total at 250,727,837 subscribers and rising. The quarter-million mark was surpassed in mid-November.

The NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y., recently reported that 38 million mobile phones were sold to consumers in the third quarter of this year, with sales reaching $3.2 billion, a 47% increase over the same period in 2006.

Even though smart phones have been marketed widely in the past year, they comprised just 11% of all sales in the third quarter, up from 4% in the same quarter in 2006. Smart phones are generally described as voice and data-capable phones, often with multimedia capabilities such as cameras and high-quality sound and color video-playback capability.

Still, Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD, said the threefold increase in smart phones for the quarter shows the devices are becoming an influential force, attracting Apple Inc. with the iPhone and interest by more than 30 companies such as Google Inc. in the Open Handset Alliance.

NPD said Motorola led sales in the third quarter with 31% of the total; LG had 17%; Samsung had 16%, Nokia had 11% and Sanyo had 4%. For the quarter, Bluetooth capability was available in 72% of the phones sold, while half were able to play music.

NPD said its mobile device sales data is based on 150,000 online consumer research surveys. The CTIA gathers its data from the Federal Communications Commission and carriers.

Read more about Mobile and Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.