In 126 of 194 Countries There Are More Mobile Subscriptions Than People
The median country has 114 mobile subscriptions per 100 people. Montenegro has 222. It is the most quoted connectivity number and it counts SIMs, not humans.
In 126 of the 194 countries profiled here there are more mobile subscriptions than people, with a median of 114 per 100 and a maximum of 222 in Montenegro — because the measure counts active SIMs rather than individual users.
The median country in this dataset has 114 mobile subscriptions per 100 people. In 126 of 194 countries the figure is above 100.
Read quickly, that says everyone on Earth has a phone and some have two. It says nothing of the kind.
The range
| Highest | Lowest | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Montenegro | 222 | Micronesia | 20 |
| Sint Maarten | 205 | North Korea | 24 |
| United Arab Emirates | 203 | Liberia | 32 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | 201 | Central African Republic | 39 |
| Libya | 193 | Marshall Islands | 40 |
| Israel | 177 | South Sudan | 47 |
A factor of eleven between the two ends, and a top figure of more than two SIMs for every man, woman and child in the country.
What the number actually counts
Active SIM cards. Not people, not handsets, not internet users.
One person with a work SIM, a personal SIM and a tablet data SIM counts three times. A family of six sharing one handset counts once. A tourist SIM bought at an airport counts. A machine — a card reader, a tracker, a metering device — counts.
That is why the small tourist economies cluster at the top. Montenegro, Sint Maarten, Antigua and the UAE all have large visitor or migrant populations relative to residents, and the denominator is residents.
The gap that matters more than the total
Put subscriptions next to actual internet use and the two come apart sharply:
| Country | Subscriptions per 100 | Internet use |
|---|---|---|
| Chad | 73 | 13% |
| Zambia | 109 | 17% |
| Turkmenistan | 88 | 18% |
| Madagascar | 75 | 19% |
Zambia has more subscriptions than people and fewer than one person in five online. A SIM is a phone number, not a connection — and in much of the world a phone is used for calls, messages and mobile money without ever loading a web page.
Anyone using mobile penetration as a proxy for internet access is measuring the wrong thing, and the error is largest exactly where it matters most.
How to read a connectivity figure
Three questions, in order:
- Is it subscriptions or users? Subscriptions is the number that goes above 100 and the one most often quoted.
- Is the denominator residents or population present? Tourist and migrant economies inflate on residents.
- Does a separate internet-use figure exist? If it does, use it. If the two disagree wildly, the disagreement is the finding.
None of the three is difficult. All three are skipped routinely, including by people arguing that a country is more connected than it is.
See internet use across all 194 countries at internet use by country, or what a shared childhood does and does not mean at what "digital native" gets wrong.