That includes 70 per cent of all European mobile users.
At the Innovation Qualcomm (IQ) event in London today, Qualcomm's CEO Paul Jacobs reflected on the speedy rise of 3G and tossed out a few figures to prove it. They include:
* There are over 1bn 3G subs worldwide now
* There will be 2.8bn 3G subs by 2014
* In 2012 there will be more 3G subs than 2G/2.5G
* 12 per cent of Eastern European subs use 3G now
* HSPA + has been launched in 63 operators across 35 countries
* Over 50 devices support HSPA+
* The first LTE devices will ship this year
Jacobs also confirmed that the company is adding over 23 million subscribers to 3G a month in the various devices its chipsets are embedded in – that's a fifth of its total chip shipments a month.
All of this is, of course, popularising the mobile internet and driving demand for mobile data.
Jacobs reminded the audience that data consumption exceeded voice for the first time last December, and referred to the fact that 17 per cent of Vodafone subscribers and 16 per cent of Telefonica subs are on a data plan.
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Qualcomm has a policy of investing in tech that fuels the mobile broadband boom. Jacobs revealed that it spends 20 per cent of its vast chipset and licensing revenues on R&D.
The focus on its spend at present includes augmented reality, Mirasol displays, broadcast TV (MediaFLO nee FLO TV), widgets (Plaza), personalisation (Xiam), apps (BREW) and even healthcare.
The firm also showcased the new start-ups funded by its Qualcomm Services Labs: Neer (geo-fence based location sharing service), Qilroy (peer-to-place communication, Tapioca (shortened URL links for mobile multimedia, and Vive (social recommendation).
There was little new at the event that ME didn't cover at the Uplinq event in San Diego earlier this summer. So click the links to check back.
