Mobile Subscriptions Reach Over 6 Billion Globally
A United Nations telecoms agency has stated that, there are almost as many subscriptions for mobile phones as there are people in the world. According to the International Telecommunication Union global mobile subscriptions actually reached just over 6 billion by the end of 2011. Now if you take this into consideration, approximately the earth’s population is just under 7 billion, which means that there is almost one mobile subscription for every single person in this world, China alone counts for almost 1 billion subscriptions.
In 2012 the International Telecommunication Union created an executive summary called “measuring the information society”. The aim of this study was to look at, and analyse 155 countries, assessing their access and use of information communication technology. The study counted the number of sim cards, not the number of devices, so for example if a person has one device but two sim cards this is counted as 2 subscriptions. Saying this, sim cards used in other devices such as dongles, tablets and navigation systems were not taken account; it was purely mobile phone devices.
The same company, based in Geneva, had studies that show just over two billion people in 2011 were internet users, that is almost one third of the world’s population that are or have been online. This number is the average of 70% of online users in developed countries and 24% of online users in developing countries.
Surprisingly there are almost twice as many subscriptions for mobile broadband services around the world, as opposed to. fixed land line broadband services according to the data collected by the ITU. In increase in subscriptions from users in developing countries has incredibly diversified the types of users that have access to the internet. Thanks to mobile broadband capabilities many of those in developing countries unable to access from a fixed broadband location, can now have access through their mobile subscription.
Even though these numbers seem to be high, with prices remaining relatively high in many developing countries for this service, mobile internet is not gaining as many users as it has the potential to gain. For optimum usage 3g network coverage needs to widely increase in such areas, as well as dropping the prices in these services. If these factors occur the mobile broadband service could work in the same way the mobile-cellular service works, bring more and more people together through technology.
On the 14th October 2012 leading names in the Information Communication Technology industry will come together in Dubai at the ITU world event and discuss these factors. 300 leaders from around the world are expected to attend the conference, and we can only hope that a long term solution is found.
Citations:
- Key statistic Highlights from ITU Study
Christopher Smith, Digital Marketing Executive at BTC Group, Promotional Merchandise Specialists