Developing countries drive explosion in global mobile phone use | Business | guardian.co.uk

Developing countries drive explosion in global mobile phone use | Business | guardian.co.uk:

"More than half the world's population now pay to use a mobile phone and nearly a quarter use the internet, as developing countries rapidly adopt new communications technologies.

By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1bn mobile subscriptions, up from 1bn in 2002, according to a report published today by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the UN.

That represents six-in-ten of the world's population, with developing countries accounting for about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use, compared with less than half of subscriptions in 2002.

Over the same period, fixed-line subscriptions rose more modestly, from 1bn to 1.27bn, indicating that many people in the developing world are bypassing the older technology altogether [...]"