Talk:List of countries by number of mobile phones in use/Archive 1

Data source: ITU
I have updated the list with up-to date figures from International Telecommunication Union, these figures are trustworthy and last but not least comparable. I think that source must be a primary source for that article and secondary sources may be used only if ITU figures are not up-to date (that mean older than year, not to use random mothly statistic against ITU yearly figures). Also for frequency of update, i think it is much better for consistency and comparability of the list to have common date of information for all countries on the list than to have inconsistent random mix of dates. --Jklamo (talk) 21:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Do we really need every single table from the World Factbook?
This table is rather meaningless and says very little about the rate of mobile phone usage, or how advanced mobile phone technology is in a country. For example, I own a total of 7 mobile phones, 4 of which are obsolete models sitting in my drawer, 2 of which I use "actively", and one of which I keep as a backup or for guests. I have 5 pay-as-you-go sim cards which I use between my 3 mobile phones, depending on where I travel and who I call. Yet, I would not consider myself a prolific mobile phone user. I would say that my situation is pretty typical for young people where I live. In an age where you can get a used mobile phone for $20 and a SIM card with some credit for $5, "mobile phone ownership" is a meaningless statistic, especially in emerging markets, where the pay-as-you-go model dominates.

Useful statistics would be things like % mobile phone penetration, % area coverage, total hours called, average mobile data bandwidth, etc. If nobody can find a source for those I'll nominate this article for deletion -- Cambrasa  confab  11:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Above i proposed update with figures from International Telecommunication Union and added column % of total telephone subscribers. Unfortunately there was no consensus about adding them. --Jklamo (talk) 00:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Statistics by percentage
perhaps another table ranked by percentage would be ideal, china is only first because there is such an extremely high population, however their percentage with a phone is only around 45% —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.17.131.53 (talk) 10:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

CIA Factbook
Info in there is totally different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.27.78.91 (talk) 17:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is the EU on this page ?
Can anybody please tell me the rationale ? I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 21:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

--Because it makes the small w**ner Euro-idiots feel better about themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.120.116.204 (talk) 05:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

More to a rational point why is the UK ahead of europe and i don't think there are 3 billion phones in the UK, also the percentage cant be right.. Luke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.138.14.239 (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It is because the table fails to take into account the pay as you go phones discarded and left lying around at home when they have been replaced. That and peope with business phones usually have their own phone so they can make personal calls and use it outside office hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.2.125.228 (talk) 11:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Lists of countries
Template:Lists of countries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Cybercobra (talk) 07:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Untitled
These are not 'up-to date figures' and the given source shows old data and is not lastest Sonny00 (talk) 11:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * old data 12x 2006, 1x 2005, 6x 2008; new data 50x 2007. As i stated, i do not think that latest (mothly) data are advantage for the list. --Jklamo (talk) 11:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

ITU are just estimates or old data,the data posted by users of nation authorities is more accurate i think,i think u should not change countries whc have lastest data and change those which are before 2007- what do u think? Sonny00 (talk) 13:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * ITU data are (with some exceptions) up-to date to 2007, also there can be different methodology between national authorities (counting inactive SIM cards etc.), but ITU unify them. I accept your proposal to combine them with latest data from national authorities (still much better than revert war), but i still think that ITU data are more consistent and comparable. --Jklamo (talk) 14:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Can someone please tell me why Russia has way more cell phones than it does citizens, yet there is no toher country that does that.: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.133.229.226 (talk) 16:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Finland
I'm surprised Finland is not mentioned in this list. Astronaut (talk) 13:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add it with sourced data. Elk Salmon (talk) 12:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Azerbaijan
Percentage, population and number of mobile phones in use are not internally consistent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.50.176.124 (talk) 09:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

India
The figures are for subscribers not the total number of cellphones. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 00:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC) True. But the number of subscribers who choose to have more than one connection are in the ballpark of 10 - 15 million, which is around 2% of the total number. Statistically insignificant!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.37.242 (talk) 20:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This still does not take into account burner cellphones no longer in use.

Also as of May 2011, the number shown in the table is total subscribers. The active subscriber number (i.e. the people who have their cell phone powered on any time in the last 72 hours of the month) is lower at 588.13 million based on VLR data, which seems more realistic. See Annexure IV of http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/PressReleases/830/Press_Release_May-11.pdf for a description of VLR data.

108.41.13.119 (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:OR on penetration rate
Adding the penetration rate without a source is WP:OR. It usually involves mixing and matching the number of phones from one source with the population from another, where the two are not done for the exact same date. Only a reliable source can give the penetration rate. --Muhandes (talk) 07:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Population number
There are several problems with the population numbers. First, most of the are unsourced (and another Wikipedia article is NOT a source). Second, even if they will be sourced, they create inconsistency when a source reports the number of phones and the penetration rate. Third, it is misleading since the date given is the date when the number of phones was counted, not when the population was. Unless a very good reason to keep them is provided I will remove the entire column as pointless. --Muhandes (talk) 17:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

User Muhandes' specific objections to the presence of the population column exemplify the usual charge against Internet Nazis--that they frequently miss the forest for the trees. The table is provided as a useful approximation of figures that are separately or collectively verifiable. There will always be a fundamental problem of consistency in a list such as this. All numbers are dynamic and reflect an instantaneous reality. For instance, as soon as a source lists a number for a country's population it becomes outdated because someone is already dead and someone else has been born. So the reliability of any such source is valid only to the extent of a necessary approximation in time. The whole point of the table (the "forest", if you will) is to provide a visitor of the page an approximate answer to a question such as: "Hmmm...I wonder how many mobile phones there are in Gabon". Natural curiosity will ask the next question: "Okay, so how many people are there in Gabon anyway?". It is this curiosity that is satisfied by the current list and that will be stifled by user Muhandes' desire to modify it the way he/she wishes to. Anon200401 (talk) 16:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You know what, I actually agree. Thinking about it made me realize the column isn't pointless. But you completely ignored the objections I raised. The numbers need sourcing, they are inconsistent and they are misleading. You did not suggest any way to solve either of the problems. I don't think natural curiosity should be satisfied with unsourced, inconsistent and misleading numbers. --Muhandes (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Muhandes. More sources and better sources are needed. I did not track down every reference offered but in the column "Number of mobile phones", not a single reference is offered. If the data is available, this should be a fairly simple table to construct. I recently put one together for my own research based solely on US population and use of mobile phones. Furthermore, the column "last updated" should be consistent. Rather than some info from "Q1 2010" and some simply from "2007", make it all simply the year. Finally, if all info per country is available from one or two good sources, perhaps an extra column for "sources" should be added just to keep the table clean. --Brendanmccabe (talk) 14:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Since we all agree that the population column serves a useful purpose and should be left alone we can now move on to the next set of objections. These have to do with allegedly inconsistent and misleading numbers. While I personally don't have a problem with the numbers and find myself perfectly capable of deriving the right conclusions from the table, I can see how some less fortunate souls will howl about dumbing down the numbers to a level of "consistency" that they can personally deal with. I could respond to user Brendanmccabe by asking him/her to define "consistency" for a naturally inconsistent column such as the "Last updated" column (collecting statistics in the "real world" is a nightmare for the collectors esp. on the global scale esp. about a new and dynamic phenomenon such as the numbers in this table). However, I'm short on time here and so will make the following two suggestions: 1) Add a "cautionary note" before the table stating the methodological problems with the compilation and use of the numbers listed and 2) Provide an example or two of how to use the numbers, perhaps also including the simple formula for arriving at the penetration figures. Beyond that, I would trust the intelligence of the visitors to this webpage. Anon200401 (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd appreciate it if you drop the patronizing. These are issues Wikipedia editors and readers care about, even if you don't.
 * Addressing my suggestion to other poor souls, how about the following format? It has the benefit that since each of the numbers carries a date and a source, it is clear that the data is disconnected and sourcing for each number is made clear.

--Muhandes (talk) 07:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Patronizing has its uses as sometimes it forces one to think before doing a hack job on an innocent table. For example, here we have user Muhandes thinking about and coming up with a brilliant solution. This solution has my approval and blessings. Anon200401 (talk) 23:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I apologize for not going further with this change as planned, due to lack of time. I have this somewhere on my list, and will try to get to it when possible, if no one else will. --Muhandes (talk) 12:23, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Untitled
As per current page Thailand has more phones that United states and several times of its population. Please change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.85.60 (talk) 12:33, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Canada
The numbers for Canada are outdated. Here are the latest numbers. Maybe someone can update it. http://cwta.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/SubscribersStats_en_2012_Q3.xlsx.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dk16 (talk • contribs) 00:40, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this about mobile phones or smart phones or both or ?????
I just reverted an unexplained change to the explanatory line before the table from "mobile phones" to "smart phones". But it raises the obvious question. What are we actually counting here? Not all mobile phones are smart phones. In fact, some people use the terms as exclusionary, saying that smart phones are not mobile phones. Does this article really make any sense? HiLo48 (talk) 05:57, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's own mobile phone has this: In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones also support a wide variety of other services such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.


 * So, yes, a "smart phone" is a variant of "mobile phone" or "cell phone". 82.141.126.28 (talk) 02:08, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

percent
How can you have more than 100%, e.g. for Taiwan? I am guessing some people have more than one phone? --  李博杰   | —Talk contribs 02:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The wiki article (incorrectly) says "number of mobile phones", but if you click on the sources you'll see the sources actually only provide "number of mobile subscribers". And "subscriber" means an active paid account, not a phone.  Most of the inflated numbers likely come from pre-paid accounts, because when people have a balance of $0.20, they're left with two options:  refill the account, or move to a competitor who has a better rate.  Competitors do not honor balances from each other, so a single person can easily be left with near-worthless prepaid balances across multiple carriers.  Each company values these near-$0 accounts as "subscribers" to boost their customer numbers.  That's why you can easily end up with well over 100%.  Some countries have regulations that companies must close accounts if their balance is below $5 for 6 months or unused for 2 years, or distinguish active vs inactive accounts based on whether it was used within the recent 3 months.  Unfortunately, there's no better alternative to assess how many subscribers there are.  Looking at phone sales doesn't help because someone may own 5 phones over a 10 year period and someone else may own only 2 phones over the same 10 years, and they may either keep or throw away the old ones.  Companies that charge monthly subscription fees have a better gauge of their subscriber count because people who stopped using their service will also stop paying the monthly fee.  With the US as a notable exception,  globally most don't have monthly fees and instead use pre-paid accounts which makes this whole process of identifying subscribers difficult. Here's a publication from India  which distinguishes total from active subscribers, with the active being only 83-90% of the total. -- Thoreaulylazy (talk) 15:58, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the "Ranking" represent anything?
If the "Ranking" field is supposed to represent the rank of of a country in mobile phone penetration (lower rank = higher penetration), then it should not really be a fixed field, but rather be computed from the current /100 number. It is totally unwieldy to manually update the numbers every time a country moves up or down the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:6B0:36:E2:9942:3DEB:5B3E:22BA (talk) 16:37, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

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New data
the data from the list is very old, someone can provide new sources? Thanks.--AlfaRocket (talk) 21:20, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. Really what is needed is to keep the numbers over time.  The CTIA numbers (https://www.ctia.org/industry-data/ctia-annual-wireless-industry-survey) are available for 2014 and 2015, but the table is setup for only having one piece of data per country, not one piece of data per country per year.  74.104.188.4 (talk) 04:31, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

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Cited in The Lancet
The Lancet published a study using information from this article. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)