Mobile Phone Service Available to 90% of World's Population

Mobile industry research firm Informa Telecoms & Media reports that:

1. 50% of the world’s population, approximately 3.3 billion people, have mobile phones.
2. It took only 26 years to reach current penetration levels.
3. There are mobile carrier networks in 224 countries throughout the world.
4. 90% of the world’s population has access to mobile phones.
5. Only 10% world’s population still has no access to a mobile phone network.

Mark Newman, Chief Research Office for Informa says “The mobile industry has constantly outperformed even the most optimistic forecasts for subscriber growth. For children growing up today the issue is not whether they will get a mobile phone, it’s a question of when. It is difficult to imagine how a modern economy could function without mobile telephony and a number of recent studies have shown that the mobile phone is having a hugely positive impact on the economies of emerging markets.”

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