At the end of 2024, the global mobile subscription total stood at 8.8 billion, according to figures from our GlobalComms Database. This is up from 8.7 billion a year earlier and 8.5 billion at end-2022.
Ten years ago, the total was closer to 7.0 billion; at the end of 2004, it was just 1.7 billion.
TeleGeography expects the total number of mobile subscriptions to reach 9.7 billion by the end of 2030, spurred by the adoption of 5G technology.
The end-2024 figure worked out to a population penetration of 109%. Europe had the highest penetration at end-2024 with a rate of 140%, followed by the U.S. & Canada with 124%. The Middle East, Asia, and Latin America were all close to the global average of 109%, while Oceania and Africa trail with penetration rates of 104% and 92%, respectively.
Still Growing
Global Mobile Subscriptions (2004 to 2024)
The U.S. & Canada had the strongest subscription growth in 2024, with the regional total rising 5% to 472 million.
The Middle East was not far behind in growth terms, as subscription numbers climbed 4% to 456 million. Latin America and Oceania saw annual growth of around 2%, while Asia, Africa, and Europe registered increases of 1%.
T-Mobile Looking to Expand in U.S.
In the U.S., the mobile sector is dominated by three players—T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T—which had market shares of 35%, 34%, and 27%, respectively as of December 31, 2024.
T-Mobile is looking to reinforce its dominant position. In May 2024 the German-owned firm agreed to acquire “substantially all” of UScellular’s mobile operations in a deal valued at $4.4 billion. The transaction will include UScellular’s mobile subscriptions and retail stores, as well as around 30% of the smaller cellco’s spectrum assets.
UScellular had around 4.4 million subscriptions at the end of 2024.
Regulatory approval for the deal’s still pending, however, with bodies including the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Rural Wireless Association having called for the merger to be blocked on competition grounds.
According to the CWA’s statement: “The merger would harm the public interest by substantially lessening competition in local markets where UScellular operates, thereby hurting workers, consumers, and other rural carriers.”
Two Huge Markets
The U.S. is one of only four countries where the mobile subscription total stands above 250 million, the others being China, India, and Indonesia.
China and India combined account for more than one-third of mobile subscriptions worldwide, with totals of 1.8 billion and 1.2 billion, respectively, at end-2024.
While the Chinese total increased by 3% in 2024, India lost around 8 million subscriptions over 12 months. The decrease was due to hefty subscription losses at third-placed cellco Vodafone Idea (Vi), which saw its user base shrink from 223 million to 207 million.
We took a look at the Chinese mobile sector in a blog post last November, charting the remarkable rise of the largest operator there, China Mobile.
The mobile market in India is also huge. The dominant player is Reliance Jio Infocomm, which sparked a price war when it launched in 2016, offering free connectivity in its first few months of service.
Even after its launch promotions had ended, Jio’s tariffs upended the industry’s pricing structure by providing unlimited (VoLTE-based) calls to any Indian network on all of its pre-paid and post-paid plans. Similarly, unlimited SMS were also incorporated in the majority of the cellco’s tariffs.
At the end of 2024, Jio claimed 40% of India’s mobile market, with 465 million subscriptions, ahead of Bharti Airtel, which had a 34% share and 385 million subscriptions.
5G Share is Growing
While 4G remains the dominant technology in terms of global subscriptions, with a share of around 55%, 5G now accounts for more than a quarter of the total.
4G Still Ahead
Mobile Subscriptions by Technology (December 2024)
Following the launch of the first LTE networks in 2010, 4G subscriptions reached 5.2 billion at the end of 2022, up from 5.1 billion a year earlier and 4.8 billion at end-2020. The year 2023 brought a decline to 5.0 billion, however, as users turned to more advanced 5G technology; there was a further fall to 4.8 billion in 2024.
There were an estimated 2.3 billion 5G subscriptions at the end of 2024, up from 1.7 billion a year before and 1.0 billion at end-2022.
2G and 3G are both on the wane, although 2G seems to be proving the more resilient of the two, with some operators maintaining 2G for longer to support M2M connectivity and provide voice coverage in areas where VoLTE is not present.
The number of 3G subscriptions globally has been declining since 2015, falling from 1.1 billion in December 2021 to 941 million a year later, 824 million by the end of 2023, and 704 million as of December 2024.
Pete Bell
Pete Bell is a Senior Analyst for TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database and also contributes to the daily CommsUpdate newsletter. He has a particular interest in wireless broadband and was responsible for TeleGeography’s 4G Research Service until it was integrated into GlobalComms.
