The Average Cell Phone Bill

The average cell phone subscriber pays $565 a year, according to Ars Technica, which scoped out some new data from the International Telecommunications Union and The Wireless Association…

The trade group reports there are more mobile phone subscriptions (322 million) than there are Americans (314 million). Of that total, 41 percent are smartphones, and 23 percent are prepaid customers.

Here in the United States, the CTIA says, Americans collectively spent 2.321 trillion minutes on the phone over the last year (a three percent increase over last year), and sent just about as many texts: 2.273 trillion (also an increase of three percent).

322 million subscriptions sounds like a lot, but it’s almost nothing. Globally, there have been six billion cellphone subscriptions, with two billion alone coming from China and India.