Americas has announced that mobile connections in Latin America surpassed half a billion in the last quarter of 2009. The GSM-HSPA technology family comprised 91 percent market share in Latin America with more than 464 million connections reported at year-end 2009. In 2009, the number of GSM-HSPA subscriptions in Latin America increased by nearly 64 million, of which 9.4 million were 3G connections. GSM technologies have seen rapid growth in Brazil with 28 million new connections in 2009.

"Mobility serves more than half a billion users in Latin America where the average wireless penetration already exceeds 86 percent," said Erasmo Rojas, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean for 3G Americas. "Citizens of the region are now connecting to the broadband Internet world with 3G HSPA high-speed mobile data networks. By the end of 2009, the adoption of these mobile broadband wireless services increased rapidly in Latin America with an annual growth that surpassed 200 percent, nearly 14 million HSPA subscriptions and commercial networks by 52 operators in 24 countries. HSPA wireless operators in the region are realizing increasing data revenues while serving society's needs for better connectivity and Internet broadband access anywhere and at anytime."

In North America, GSM-HSPA technology continues to add more subscriptions than any other wireless technology with 13.6 million new subscriptions added in 2009 and 8 million in the fourth quarter alone.

"GSM-HSPA operators in the U.S. had a great fourth quarter, adding more subscriptions than in the previous three quarters combined," said Mike Roberts, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. "Across North and Latin America, GSM to HSPA accounted for 73 percent of mobile subscriptions at the end of 2009, up from 70 percent at the end of 2008."

UMTS-HSPA grew substantially in the Western Hemisphere with subscriptions up 136 percent to total more than 64 million at the end of 2009. Operators continue to deploy HSPA, the world's most popular mobile broadband technology, with 60 commercial networks in 54 countries throughout the region.

Globally, GSM-HSPA technologies reached 4.17 billion subscriptions or 89 percent market share. Today, there are more than 450 million 3G UMTS-HSPA subscriptions representing 10 percent of the GSM family technology market on 345 commercial networks in 139 countries worldwide.