Mobile phone penetration in 97 countries of the world is over 100% in 2010 but Internet usage is at 30% globally, data released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) of the UN shows.
The ITU observes that the first decade of the new Millennium saw extraordinary progress made in ICT development globally.
In 2002 only two countries in the world – Israel and Luxemburg had over 100% mobile penetration, however, now, 97 countries have achieved this, while 17 countries have crossed the penetration levels of 150%.
“Mobile cellular penetration in the developing world reached 70% at the end of 2010 – just six years after reaching 70% in the developed world,” the ITU says.
The ITU data shows that global Internet user penetration reached 30% in 2010; Internet user penetration in developed countries reached 30% just nine years earlier, in 2001.
“In the year 2000, Internet user penetration was under 1% in 72 economies. Ten years later, there were just six economies with Internet user penetration under 1%. Internet user penetration in the developing world as a whole reached 21% in 2010,” it adds.
It also says that global Internet penetration in 2010 which stood at 30%, was higher than global fixed lines which was 16% or mobile penetration, which was 12% of telephone penetration in the year 2000.
In 2010, mobile cellular penetration in Africa which is at 45.2% was higher than mobile cellular penetration in the Americas in 2004, that was 42.8%. Meanwhile, the report indicates that mobile cellular penetration in the Americas had grown to 94.5% by 2010.
Internet user penetration in Africa grew over 20-fold in the decade to 2010, from 0.5% to 10.8%. This gave Africa higher Internet user penetration in 2010, than in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) five years earlier. In CIS, meanwhile, Internet penetration grew from 10.2% in 2005 to 34.0% in 2010, it says.
The ITU data however, shows that mobile penetration in Ghana stands at 71.49% in 2010. The number of the population using moble phones it says is 17.4 million (17,436.9) of a population of 24 million. In 2005 there were 2.8 million mobile phone users in Ghana (2,874.6).
The ratio of mobile phones to fixed lines is 62.7:1.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi