Six of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones – but only 4.5 billion have a toilet
Mobile phones subscriptions have seen a drastic change in only 25 years. In the past decade, a global shift in predominance of mobile phone ownership has seen low-income countries reach near ubiquitous levels and to a certain extent helped overcome the lack of landline connections. The International Telecommunication Union estimates that there are now over 7.5 billion wireless subscribers which are shown in this cartogram; over 70% of them reside in low- and middle- income countries and over 85% of the world’s population has wireless signal cover. Mobile phone technology has narrowed the gap between high and middle/low-income countries like no preceding technological advance.
