Edit: I guess you meant global as far as the English language is concerned only, ignoring the equivalent words in other languages. But even that would be wrong, as apparently Australia adopted the American usage after the UK.
In any case, it's interesting that the US diverged from the European use following the French (who since then went back to the original meaning of billion).
What's your definition of global?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Current_...
Edit: I guess you meant global as far as the English language is concerned only, ignoring the equivalent words in other languages. But even that would be wrong, as apparently Australia adopted the American usage after the UK.
In any case, it's interesting that the US diverged from the European use following the French (who since then went back to the original meaning of billion).