Interesting information from a UN report done last year about the use of cellular phones around the world.
By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1bn mobile subscriptions, up from 1bn in 2002. That represents six in 10 of the world’s population, although it is hard to make a precise calculation about how many people actually use mobile phones.
Africa is the continent with the fastest growth, where penetration has soared from just one in 50 people at the turn of the century to 28%.
Much of the take-up is thought to have been driven by money transfer services that allow people without bank accounts to send money speedily and safely by text messages, which the recipient – typically a family member – can cash in at the other end. Vodafone’s M-Pesa money transfer service was launched in Kenya in 2007 and now has 5 million users.
The ITU report points to the Gambia, where mobile subscriptions have rocketed amid stiff competition among mobile operators. Out of almost a million telephone subscribers, there are more than 800,000 mobile subscriptions but only about 50,000 fixed telephone lines in service.
Developing countries now account for about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use, compared with less than half of subscriptions in 2002.
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