A UN agency report predicts that mobile phone subscriptions are going to outnumber the world population by the end of 2014. The prediction made by the International Telecoms Union states that cell phone subscriptions will pass an unbelievable seven billion by the beginning of 2014.
At the moment, there are 6.8 billion mobile phone subscriptions, while the world population stands at 7.1 billion people. The ITU World in 2013 report also states that more than a third of the world population is online. The report also found that the Commonwealth of Independent States, the alliance of countries formerly in the Soviet Union has the highest mobile penetration, with 1.7 subscriptions for every person.
On the other hand, Africa has the smallest number of subscriptions, with 63 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Brahima Sanou, the director of ITU Telecommunications Development Bureau said, “Every day we are moving closer to having almost as many mobile cellular subscriptions as people on Earth. The mobile revolution is ‘m-powering’ people in developing countries by delivering ICT applications in education, health, government, banking, environment and business”.
The report also states that 40 percent of the world’s population, which accounts to 2.7 billion people, is online.
