EU on whole has more mobile subscribers than people

EU on whole has more mobile subscribers than people

The European Commission has said in its 12th annual report on the E.U. telecommunications market that the region now has more mobile connections than people.

However, the report further said that despite this fact they need to do more to spread the benefits of telecommunications. The aim of the commission is to create a genuine single telecoms market across the 27 countries in the E.U.

The region has as many as 478.4 million mobile phones in use. The mobile penetration has touched 103 percent of the population. This is up from 95 percent penetration in 2005.

The problem is that some regions in the EU have a much deeper mobile density compared to others. Luxembourg (171 percent), Italy (134 percent) and Lithuania (133 percent) are the regions with highest penetration while France (82 percent), Malta (83 percent) and Slovakia (86 percent) are trailing.

Viviane Reding, E.U. Commissioner for Telecommunications added on this: “The opening of telecom markets to competition is certainly one of the E.U.’s success stories as can be seen by the downward trend in tariffs and better services.”