New Delhi, May 11 (KNN)  With the International Telecoms Union (ITU) predicting that mobile subscriptions will pass seven billion early in 2014, there will be more mobile phones than people by the end of 2014, said a BBC News report.

“There are currently 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions and 7.1 billion people,” according to the UN agency report, also revealing that more than a third of the global population are online.

While the Commonwealth of Independent States, the alliance of countries formerly in the Soviet Union, has the highest mobile penetration with 1.7 subscriptions for every person, Africa has the least, with 63 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.

Surprisingly, in countries like India, the report said, mobile growth is slowing.

Notably, almost 40 per cent of the world’s population which is about 2.7 billion people are online.  While Europe has the highest penetration (75 per cent), followed by the Americas (61 per cent), Asia has 32 per cent of its population online and Africa 16 per cent.

This goes to say that some 4.5 billion people are still offline.

"This means that two-thirds of the world's people are still locked out of the world's biggest market," said ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Toure.  Although he commended the progress, in his opinion, more needed to be done.

Meanwhile, director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau Brahima Sanou said, "The mobile revolution is 'm-powering' people in developing countries by delivering ICT applications in education, health, government, banking, environment and business."  (KNN)