If you live in the U.S. and Europe and feel as if every person you know (including yourself) owns and uses a cellphone, you’re right on. A new report out this month from Pyramid Research confirms the suspicion that the mobile phone markets in “First World” economies are pretty saturated.

 

According to Pyramid Research, at the end of 2006 there were almost 2.8 billion subscribers to mobile services around the world, translating to an overall penetration rate of 44 percent. In rich economies like Western Europe, the penetration rate exceeded 100 percent. But in emerging markets like Africa and Southeast Asia, penetration averaged less than 20 percent.

 

Pyramid Research also said in its report, The Next Billion: How Emerging Markets are Shaping the Mobile Industry, that another billion mobile subscriptions are forecasted by year-end 2009. Since most people in the developed world already have at least one such subscription, about 85 percent of this projected growth will come from emerging markets.

 

The question is, what happens when everyone in the world (or at least, all except those literally starving) has a cellphone? How will service providers and vendors keep growing their revenues when the global market is saturated? Well, there’s Moore’s Law to ensure that new and better phones and services are needed to replace the ones already purchased.

 

And if that fails, there are the untapped markets of the moon and Mars.