World Bank has announced that three quarters of the world’s population or 75 percent inhabitants on the earth have access to mobile phones, or out of the 7 billion population in this world, 5.25 billion people use mobile phone for communication and other needs.
The number of mobile phone subscriptions amounts to over 6 billion, while 5 billion out of total count come from developing markets showing that people of developing countries are using mobile phone devices for other purposes than basic calling, texting and for communication too.
Developing world has more mobile phone users than the developed world, the report said.
The number of subscriptions, World Bank noted, had increased by 5 billion over the last 12 years since 2000 when we had fewer than 1 billion mobile subscriptions. It also said that in 2011 alone, around 30 billion applications were downloaded worldwide.
World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte said that:
“Mobile communications offer major opportunities to advance human and economic development – from providing basic access to health information to making cash payments, spurring job creation, and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes, The challenge now is to enable people, businesses, and governments in developing countries to develop their own locally-relevant mobile applications so they can take full advantage of these opportunities.”
One of the lead authors of the report, Tim Kelly who is Lead ICT Policy Specialist at the World Bank also said that:
“The mobile revolution is right at the start of its growth curve: mobile devices are becoming cheaper and more powerful while networks are doubling in bandwidth roughly every 18 months and expanding into rural areas,”
In Pakistan, mobile phone subscribers are are counted as over 120 million showing that people are getting more and more involved in the ‘mobile revolution’.
