From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Mar 02 2009 - 08:52:47 EST
(AFX UK Focus) 2009-03-02 09:42
Mobile phone growth helps poorer states--U.N. index
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA, March 2 (Reuters) - Two thirds of the world's cell phone
subscriptions are in developing nations, with the highest growth rate in
Africa where a quarter of the population now has a mobile, a United Nations
agency said on Friday.
While just 1 in 50 Africans had a mobile in the year 2000, now 28 percent
have a cellular subscription, according to the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The world has more than three times more mobile cellular subscriptions than
fixed telephone lines, and in some countries in Asia and Europe people have
more than one contract each, pushing the mobile access rate above 100
percent.
In its Measuring the Information Society report, the ITU said the Internet
is far less accessible in poorer parts of the world, for instance in Africa
where just 5 percent of the population now uses the Internet.
"Fixed Internet access in developing countries is still limited, and, where
available, often slow and/or expensive," it said in the report that ranked
countries' information and communication technologies (ICT) as of 2007, the
last year for which figures were available. Sweden topped the index, which
measured countries' relative access to telephones, computers and
communications networks and literacy rates, and South Korea placed second.
Nordic states and high-income European, Asian, and North America also scored
high.
But dramatic mobile cellular growth in developing countries, including
Pakistan (ranked 127th), Saudi Arabia (55th), China (73rd), and Vietnam
(92nd), helped bolster emerging economies since the last index was compiled,
in 2002, the ITU said.
Companies that have invested heavily in emerging markets include India's
Bharti Airtel, Norway's Telenor , South Africa's MTN and Egypt's Orascom
Telecom.
Following is a ranking of the top 10 and bottom 10 countries on that index
of 154 countries. The full ICT Development Index is available on:
www.itu.int
*ICT DEVELOPMENT INDEX 2007 RANKING (2002 RANKING) 1 - SWEDEN (1) 2 - SOUTH
KOREA (3) 3 - DENMARK (4) 4 - NETHERLANDS (6) 5 - ICELAND (2) 6 - NORWAY (5)
7 - LUXEMBOURG (21) 8 - SWITZERLAND (7) 9 - FINLAND (8) 10 - UNITED KINGDOM
(10)*
145 - TANZANIA (138) 146 - MALI (150) 147 - ETHIOPIA (147) 148 - MOZAMBIQUE
(148) 149 - ERITREA (137) 150 - BURKINA FASO (151) 151 - DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
OF CONGO (144) 152 - GUINEA-BISSAU (153) 153 - CHAD (152) 154 - NIGER (154)
Keywords: TECHNOLOGY/UN (geneva.newsroom@reuters.com; Tel. +41 22 733 3831;
Reuters Messaging: laura.macinnis.reuters.com@reuters.net)
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