Top 5 Countries With The Highest Tele-Density

The telecom sector enjoyed its run as one of the sunshine sectors in India a few years ago. Gradually, though, some of the sheen has worn off due to the regulatory changes and higher competition that sparked off tariff wars.

For all the talk of the mobile boom in India, the country does lag much behind the others with respect to tele-density. Tele-density is defined as the number of mobile phones used in a country as a percentage of its population.

In this article, we look at the top 5 countries in the world with the highest density of mobile phones and where India stands as compared to them.

Hong Kong: Hong Kong is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China. The country has secured the top slot in our list according to data available. Hong Kong has a tele-density of 1.89, with 1.32 crore mobile phones being used by a population of 70 lakh.

Russia: The Russian Federation has a total tele-density of 1.79. The total population of the country stands at 14.29 crore and it has 25.62 crore mobile phone users within its boundaries.

Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, apart from having the world’s highest oil reserves, also has third highest tele-density that stands at 1.70. Its total population stands at 2.71 crore and the number of mobile phones used in the country is at 4.60 crore.

Lithuania: The Republic of Lithuania, the largest of the three Baltic states, has a tele-density of 1.48. With a population of 33.41 lakh, the country has a mobile phone user base of 49.60 lakh.

Estonia: We have a tie for the fourth position. The Republic of Estonia, a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, also has a tele-density of 1.48. With a population of 13.40 lakh, the country has a mobile phone user base of 19.82 lakh.

India: India ranks 56th as far as tele-density is concerned. With a population of 122 crore, the country has a mobile density of 0.71. The number of mobile phones used across the country is 86.16 crore.