Almost six billion mobile phone subscriptions have been taken out around the world, new figures have shown.
A report from the International Telecommunication Union, which is an agency of the United Nations, has shown that this milestone was almost reached at the end of 2011, the BBC reports.
Entitled Measuring the Information Society 2012, the study revealed around one billion subscriptions have been taken out in China alone.
Susan Teltscher, head of the data division at the agency, explained the numbers were calculated based on a Sim card count, as opposed to the number of devices or people.
“So if one person has two Sim cards in one device, it counts as two subscriptions – and we count monthly subscriptions as well,” Ms Teltscher explained.
It was shown that there are almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions across the globe than fixed broadband deals.
In addition, the report found 70 per cent of people in developed countries are now online, compared to 24 per cent in developing regions.
As such, it was noted that around one-third of the planet’s population had become web users by the end of 2011.
