A recent report from Wireless Intelligence, an information service set up by industry body GSM Association and consulting firm Ovum, claims that the number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide has surpassed two billion milestone, which means that every third person on the planet uses a cell phone.

“The bulk of the new growth now is coming from large, less well-developed markets such as China, India, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa,” Wireless Intelligence said in a statement, Reuters news-agency reports. 

“The total number of mobile connections is now equivalent to nearly a third of the estimated world population of 6.5 billion. Although total connections are higher than the real number of users due to multiple connections, or inactive pre-paid connections, this is still a significant landmark for the industry,” Martin Garner, director at Wireless Intelligence, is reported to have said.

Nokia, the world’s top maker of mobile phones last month indicated that it expected the two billion 2 billion spot to be achieved in the October-to-December quarter and three billion by 2010.

Nokia, which sold 31.9% of all phones in the second quarter, according to researchers Gartner, is followed by Motorola with 17.9% of the market and Samsung Electronics with 12.8%, Reuters noted.