Nearly six in ten persons use mobile in developing world: UN

London, Feb. 24 (ANI): Nearly six in ten persons have a mobile phone in the developing world, according to a new UN report.

An international Telecommunication Union report released on Tuesday said that 57 per cent of people in developing nations were mobile phone subscribers.

There were an estimated 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions at the end of last year, compared with about one billion in 2002, the report said.

"The rate of progress remains remarkable," The Scotsman quoted the UN agency, as saying.

To prepare the report, the UN tallied mobile phone, land-line telephone and internet usage in 159 countries, which ranged form most advanced European nations to least developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The report also found that Internet use has grown, but at a slower pace.

An estimated 1.7 billion people, or 26 per cent of the world's population, were online last year, up from 11 per cent in 2002.

Still, four out of five people living in poor countries had no access to the internet, with China comprising a third of the people online in the developing world.

"One important challenge in bringing more people online is the limited availability of fixed broadband access," the report said, adding that such services are mainly in the West and China.

It also found that general access to the internet, telephones and other technologies was becoming cheaper, with the cost dropping in nearly every country last year.

In Macao, Hong Kong and Singapore, the prices were lowest compared to people's income. (ANI)