Global Mobile Cellular Growth Outstrips Landlines

According to a recent survey by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), approximately 60 per cent of the world's population have mobile phone subscriptions. The ITU estimates, in its report Measuring the Information Society, that there were over four billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2008 — up from one billion in 2002. Almost two-thirds of mobile subscriptions globally were from the developing world, compared to 44 per cent in 2002.

By the end of 2008, there were over three times more mobile cellular subscriptions than fixed telephone lines, estimated at 1.3 billion. The report found the number of lines is decreasing in many developed countries, but increasingly slowly in developing countries. As a result, fixed line penetration has remained relatively static, at just under 20 per cent.