100 million 3G users this month

Nearly six years after UK operators spent the GDP of a small country on buying 3G licences - £22bn to be exact - the number of 3G subscribers is set to pass the 100 million mark this month.

According to research from analyst house Strategy Analytics, subscriber numbers will reach 102 million subscribers, due to heavy promotion from operators and an expanded, more appealing portfolio of 3G devices.

The analyst also points out that 3G is now growing faster than GSM – the 2G standard used in most of the world – did in the early 90s.

Most of the 3G population is still located in Japan and South Korea, where operators DoCoMo, Hutchison and SK Telecom are pushing 3G. The US and Western Europe are starting their own 3G switch though, led by Verizon and Vodafone respectively. Vodafone recently announced it now has 7.7 million 3G device users outside of Japan.

Separate research from ABI Research predicts that by 2011, there will be one billion 3G users worldwide.