But according to GSMA Intelligence — a global trade association conducting real-time mobile network analysis—there are now more than 7.2 billion active SIM cards in the world and the number is increasing five times faster than the human population. As sure as the sun rises and sets, this day was always going to dawn. Our love of gadgets and obsession with vicarious existence wouldn’t have it any other way. Yet the fact that there are more active mobile devices across the globe is still a pretty jaw-dropping statistic. Note that the stats also include machine-to-machine (M2M) mobile connections, mind you — and some folks have multiple phones. The actual number of unique mobile subscribers is 3.6 billion across the world. In other words, half the world’s population still don’t have a mobile phone. Kevin Kimberlin, chairman of Spencer Trask, commented: But he warned:
