Just as the U.S. population was breaking the arbitrary-but-exciting 300 million barrier last year, it turns out we were being beaten by the subscriber roll of a single Chinese cellphone operator. With a vaguely surreal 301.2 million customers, China Mobile's head count had topped America's 300.9 inhabitants by New Year's Day. 53 million, roughly the population of England, signed up last year alone.
It indicates, if nothing else, the spectacular growth in handset ownership in the developing world, where simple GSM devices costing under $30 are given freely to contracted subscribers who pay almost nothing for their calls: believe it or not, but China Mobile's margins are so thin they are dissatisfied with their success and want an even bigger chunk of China's 1.4 billion souls under the ol' subsidy yoke.
China Mobile subscribers top U.S. population [infoWorld]
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