Cell Phones: More Than One Billion Served

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Cell phone sales broke a big barrier in 2007, according to new research released by Gartner. Worldwide, more than one billion mobile phones were sold; 1.15 billion to more exact.

Keep in mind, the world's population is around 6.5 billion. Just a little perspective I'd like to offer up as you digest that number.

I'm dating myself, but back in the 80's AT&T made the jingle "reach out and touch someone" a household euphemism and punchline.

Well, back to the future I say. It seems its the phone that really is connecting us together as global village, only less by voice and more by Internet connection through these mobile devices.

I'll leave it to you to do the math what 1.15 billion cell phones sold worldwide in just a year means in terms of just how many people on planet earth actually have a cell phone. (Mainly because I don't have those figures at my fingertips). You would have to figure in how many already had a cell phone, how many of those cell phones sold were replacing an old cell phone, how many were actually new users and how many have more than one phone, etc. Uh, if I could crunch those kinds of numbers and variables, I probably wouldn't be doing this for a living.

It does boggle the mind and give legs to those of who can't stop talking about the emerging mobile web; emerging perhaps more rapidly than any of us realized.

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio