Mobile phone subscriptions is expected to resist the economic crisis and top five billion this year, but the high speed Internet remains a “digital divide” between rich and developing countries, a U.N. agency said on Tuesday. By the end of 2009 there were 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions globally, corresponding to a penetration rate of 67 percent, the ITU’s annual report on developments in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector showed. “Demand for mobile telephony is fairly resilient with consumers willing to spend their disposable income on mobile services even at times of financial constraints,” statistician Esperanza Magpantay stated at the launch of the ITU’s 2010 report on Measuring the Information Society.
