Are you reading this post from your mobile device? If so, you make up the one billion people worldwide using a mobile phone.

More than one billion smartphone devices out there right now are navigating a native app, browsing the mobile web, texting or talking. Research firm Strategy Analytics has reported that we have hit a major mobile milestone – there are now over 1.038 billion smartphones in use worldwide. According to TechCrunch, this milestone took quite a while to reach:

“It’s taken 16 years to pass 1 billion, but the analysts believe it will only take three years for the next billion smartphone users to come on board.

When it comes to the big things in technology, billion, it seems, is the new million.

The analysts do not go into the specifics of which handset maker accounts for the bulk of these. At the moment, Samsung is the leader in terms of how many handsets are getting sold quarterly, with Apple and then Nokia following behind.”

The mobile market is revving up – which is great news for software developers, and a big red flag to companies who haven’t yet launched their software in native and web apps. If you haven’t taken your enterprise mobile, you need to start developing and executing a mobile strategy. A good way to think of it is – if you don’t have a mobile app there are 1.038 billion devices you don’t have a presence on.

However, just releasing an app won’t get you onto all of – or even a good portion of these devices. This is where quality comes in. In order to have a good mobile presence, your app needs to be intuitive and well-tested for software bugs and real world issues.

What do you think of this worldwide mobile device record – and do you agree with analyst predictions that it will double in only 3 years? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.