"Worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion – equivalent to half the global population – on Thursday, 26 years after the first cellular network was launched, research firm Informa said.
But although mobile subscriptions have reached the equivalent of 50 percent of the population, this does not mean that half the people in the world now have a mobile phone, since Informa said 59 countries have mobile penetration of over 100 percent – where some owners have more than one phone."
i kinda still doubt this news... half the population does not have clean water and toilet and they are very poor.. plus a huge population is kids and old people who cannot have a cellphone... then how come there are 3 billion phones in the world..
may be they counted the phones alloted since the invention but skipped the closed subscriptions etc...
I have seen rikshaw drivers and sabzi wala's in Pakistan with cell phones :)
The article does go on to say that its not every country. In some countries some people have multiple phones/data services. Including myself we have about 4-5 people in my company with multiple devices.