Mon, 01/11/2010 – 13:49 byI wrote about this in more detail in December, but it’s interesting to see the growth visually depiticed. Here’s the US CDC’s discussion of the data for 1H 09:

In the first 6 months of 2009, more than one of every five households (22.7%) did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one wireless telephone (Table 1). Approximately 21.1% of all adults–approximately 48 million adults–lived in households with only wireless telephones; 21.3% of all children–nearly 16 million children–lived in households with only wireless telephones. The percentage of households that are wireless-only has been steadily increasing. The 2.5-percentage-point increase from the last 6 months of 2008 through the first 6 months of 2009 is nearly equivalent to the 2.7-percentage-point increase observed from the first 6 months of 2008 through the last 6 months of 2008. The percentage of households that are wireless-only increased by approximately 5 percentage points in just 12 months, from 17.5% in the first 6 months of 2008 to 22.7% in the first 6 months of 2009. The percentage of adults living in wireless-only households has also been increasing steadily (see figure). During the first 6 months of 2009, more than one of every five adults lived in wireless-only households. One year before that (i.e., during the first 6 months of 2008), one of every six adults lived in wireless-only households. And 2 years before that (i.e., during the first 6 months of 2006), only 1 of every 10 adults lived in wireless-only households.  

Given the trend, it’s likely that we’ll hit 25% at some point in 2010. That’s a lot of people.