UN: world cell phone subscriptions now number six billion
updated 06:49 pm EDT, Thu October 11, 2012
Agency claims 2.3 billion Internet users
In a report released today, the International Telecommunication Union revealed that the world now has six cell phone subscriptions for every seven inhabitants. The UN telecom agency says there were six billion subscriptions by the end of 2011, as well as 2.3 billion Internet users. The new Internet estimate means that about one in three people on Earth is connected to the Internet, about as much as the populations of China and India put together.
China alone accounts for about one billion cell phone subscriptions, according to the ITU. Subscriptions in India are expected to hit the billion mark by the end of this year.
The majority of the world's Internet users, about 70 percent, live in wealthier, industrialized countries. Twenty-four percent live in poorer, developing nations.
The world's cell phone subscription base has increased by one billion over the past two years. An ITU report in 2010 put total global subscriptions at five billion.
