FUDBusters: Mobile Phone Growth Estimates Seem Greatly Exaggerated

FUDFactor: There are 2 billion mobile phone users worldwide, and the market shows no signs of slowing down. It's not unreasonable to expect that nearly half the world's 6.5 billion people will be using mobile phones by 2010.

FUDBust: We're glad things are going so well in the mobile phone market, but let's not get crazy here. According to the Population Reference Bureau, around 2 billion of the people in the world are under age 15--too young to sign a contract. And more than half the world lives below the poverty line, making less than $2 per day, according to the PRB. How are those folks going to pay their mobile phone bills? Let's get real. The GSM Association estimates that though 80 percent of the world's people have access to cell phone networks, only one quarter of them actually use the devices.