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Cell phone subscriptions to top 5 billion this year

With about 4.6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide already, the International Telecommunication Union expects the numbers to keep growing this year as it expects mobile subscriptions to reach 5 billion in 2010. The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care “Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, “and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the internet.” To that end, the ITU expects the number of mobile broadband subscriptions to top 1 billion globally during 2010. In fact, it said it expects web access via laptops and smartphones to exceed desktops by 2015. Touré said that the advances in technology can have a dramatic impact on health care for people in the developing world, while saving money at the same time for medical professionals.