50 Years Since the First Mobile Call: By 2030, Approximately 6.4 Billion Subscribers

At the end of 2022, there were 5.4 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, and by 2030, this number is expected to reach approximately 6.4 billion, according to the global mobile industry association GSMA, marking the 50th anniversary of the first mobile phone call.

The first mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, by engineer and inventor Marty Cooper from the streets of New York, using a phone that weighed about one kilogram and had a battery life of 25 minutes.

Cooper is referred to as the father of the mobile phone because he directed his pioneering work with a team at Motorola towards the development of the commercial mobile phone DynaTAC 8000X, known for its brick-like shape, about a decade after the prototype was used for the first call. This phone was sold for around $4,000.

The first mobile phone was expensive and not very functional, but it was already predicted that mobile telephony could develop to the point where one day everyone would have a mobile phone. This has been confirmed by the continuous growth of the mobile industry and networks, as well as the development of mobile devices, which have long ceased to be merely a means of conversation.

Globally, there are over 8.4 billion SIM connections, highlighting the significant social impact that mobile phones have achieved. It is the most widespread consumer electronics device in history, and we already have more mobile phones than people in the world.

In Croatia, according to HAKOM data, the first mobile phone call was made on August 11, 1995. It was symbolically made by the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman on the then-experimental 2G mobile network Cronet.

The number of mobile phone users in Croatia has been steadily increasing over the last 20 years, and according to the latest HAKOM data, at the end of 2022, there were nearly 4.5 million users, about 80,000 more than at the end of 2021.

The majority of mobile users are subscribers, slightly over 2.8 million, while about 1.6 million are without a subscription obligation, with the highest number being with Hrvatski Telekom (HT), which also has the largest market share among operators at 44.8 percent. The second is A1 Hrvatska with a market share of 35.4 percent, and the third is Telemach Hrvatska with 19.9 percent.