Ghana’s mobile internet subscription reached 10,564,181 at the end of August, this year, the National Communications Authority (NCA) has said. The figure represents a growth rate of 2.1 percent over the July 2013 figure of -1.3 percent.

It also translates into a telecom data penetration of 40.7 percent compared to 40.0 percent recorded in July 2013.

MTN Ghana is still leading the telecom data subscriber table with 57.30 percent of the market share. It recorded 6,053,183 data lines at the end of August 2013.

This is followed by Airtel with 1,615,729 data lines, representing 15.29 percent market share while Tigo recorded 1,468,383 data lines, representing 13.90 percent market share.

Vodafone Ghana, the second largest mobile network operator in the country in terms of voice telephony, recorded 1,139,306 data lines at the end of August. It also placed fourth on the data subscription table with about 10.78 percent of the market share.

Glo Mobile, the last entrant into the telecom industry, recorded 241,437 telecom data lines, representing 2.29 percent of market share while Expresso, the only CDMA mobile, boasts of 46,143 data subscriptions representing 0.44 percent of the market.

Global Situation

Meanwhile, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), in a 2013 report on Information and Communications Technology (ICT), suggests that over 2.7 billion people in the world are now using the internet, which represents 39 percent of the world’s population.

In the developing world, 31 percent of the population is found to be online compared to 77 percent in the developed world. Europe has the highest internet penetration rate in the world (75 percent) followed by the Americas (61 percent).

In Africa, 16 percent of people are using the internet and that represents only half the penetration rate of Asia and the Pacific.

Gender

More men are reported to be using the internet. Globally, 37 percent of women are online, compared to 41 percent of men. This represents 1.3 billion women and 1.5 billion men.

The developing world is home to about 826 million female internet users and 980 million male internet users while the developed world is home to about 475 million female internet users and 483 million male internet users.

The gender gap is more pronounced in the developing world, where 16 percent fewer women than men use the internet compared to only 2 percent fewer women than men in the developed world.

The report noted that in 2013, 41 percent of the world’s households are connected to the internet; half of them are in the developing world, where household internet penetration has reached 28 percent.

In the developed world, 78 percent of all households are connected to the internet while 90 percent of the 1.1 billion households not connected to the internet are in the developing world.

Differences

Europe and Africa are the regions with the highest and the lowest levels of household internet penetration respectively- 77 percent in Europe compared to 7 percent in Africa.