Globally, 82 per cent of individuals 10 years or older own a mobile phone. Universal ownership, meaning a penetration rate of over 95 per cent, has been reached in high-income economies, while upper-middle-income economies have already surpassed the 90 per cent mark. This stands in contrast with low-income economies, where only 53 per cent of the population aged 10 years and over own a mobile phone.
Mobile phones are the most common gateway to the Internet, so the prevalence of mobile phone ownership can provide an indication of Internet penetration. This is not a one-to-one relationship however, as people other than the owner may use the mobile phone to access the Internet such as for instance children using the mobile phone of a parent. Additionally, some mobile phones, such as feature phones, or limited subscription phones, are used on a calls-only basis. Furthermore, some individuals may own more than one mobile phone. In most countries, the percentage of individuals owning a mobile phone is higher than the percentage of individuals using the Internet.
This is also the case at the regional level for all six ITU regions. In Europe, the CIS region, and the Americas region the mobile phone-Internet use difference is small, as both measures are already close to universality. In the Asia-Pacific region, the prevalence of mobile phone ownership is four percentage points greater than Internet use, while in the Arab States region it is 14 percentage points greater. In Africa, although 66 per cent of the population own a mobile phone, only 36 per cent are online, a difference of 30 percentage points. However, the gap is shrinking in all regions, as growth in Internet use continues to outpace growth in mobile phone ownership.
The gender gap in mobile phone ownership is comparable with the gender gap in Internet use. Globally, 78 per cent of females and 87 per cent of males aged 10 and over own a mobile phone, translating into a gender parity score of 0.90 (i.e. skewed against women), which is slightly lower than the corresponding 0.92 score for Internet use. As with Internet use, progress on gender parity in mobile phone ownership has been uneven in the past three years. Globally, women are 10 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than men, which is down from 12 per cent in 2022. Among those not owning mobile phones, women outnumber men by 67 per cent. As with Internet use, gender parity is strongly correlated with income levels. The lowest gender parity scores are observed in lower income countries, the LDCs, and the LLDCs.