ITU's latest report predicts mobile phones will surpass the total number of people by next year. However, it says countries like India are having a slowed Internet growth.
The ongoing mobile revolution, also known as ‘m-powering’, is set to continue with same intensity next year, and there’ll be more mobile phone subscriptions than people in the world by that time. The predictions were made in UN agency International Telecoms Union’s latest report.
SurveyAccording to the ITU report, there are currently 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions and 7.1 billion people. The agency in its report also highlighted that a third of the global population are connected with Internet.
The highest mobile penetration were found in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the alliance of countries formerly in the Soviet Union with 1.7 subscriptions on each person. Africa had the least mobile penetration with 63 subscriptions per 100 persons.
“Every day we are moving closer to having almost as many mobile cellular subscriptions as people on earth,” Brahima Sanou, director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau is quoted as saying.
“The mobile revolution is ‘m-powering’ people in developing countries by delivering ICT applications in education, health, government, banking, environment and business.”
In terms of online connectivity, almost 40% of the world’s population i.e. 2.7 billion people are online. Europe has the highest penetration (75%), followed by the Americas (61%). Asia stands at the third position with 32% followed by Africa with 16% penetration.
India’s mobile growth slowing down?
According to the ITU report, mobile growth in some countries like India is slowing down. ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Toure says the growth posted was “extraordinary” but he acknowledged a lot was required to be done.
“Two-thirds of the world’s population, some 4.5 billion people, is still offline. This means that two-thirds of the world’s people are still locked out of the world’s biggest market,” he stressed.
Source: BBC News