S.Korea has more mobile phones than people: agency

[unreal.livejournal.com]

Gadget-mad South Korea now has more mobile phones than people, with a growing number of users carrying multiple handsets for business purposes, telecoms authorities said on Wednesday.

The Korea Communications Commission said there were 50 million mobile service subscribers in the country as of this month, more than the population of 48.8 million.

"You may say there are 1.2 million people carrying two phones, but excluding children and those with no phones, the number of multiple-phone owners could be far higher," Choi Seong-Ho, the commission's communication service policy director, told AFP.

Now mobile phones are not simply a tool to make calls and send text messages but an essential part of everyday life encompassing business, shopping and Internet searches, he said.

South Korea launched its first mobile phone service in 1984 and the number of subscribers grew exponentially through the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The agency also said there are 3.67 million smartphone users in the country, 7.4 percent of the total.

Statistics Korea estimates the 2009 population at 49.30 million -- still fewer than the number of mobile phones.

Source: AFP

Comments

[karerou.livejournal.com]

Not surprising. I have 3 phones.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Wae? o_O Are you using all three of them?:o

[catscomics.livejournal.com]

The number of handphone in Hong Kong outweighted its population since like ~5 years ago.

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

Kinda surprised that this happened in SK this late.

[wintersol.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Yo, can I get one of them?

/owns a shitty europhone

[lilipute.livejournal.com]

How about you guys take some of them awesome ass phones and ship them to the U.S?

How bout that?

[piruvi.livejournal.com]

what..i thought it would be like a obvious thing... though i have no ideas how much people use mobile in my country but at least i know that many people have two phones for example one old phone with one service and the other with other one (for example one service has that to the same company for free etc) and many workers have also their work mobile phones.. so KOREA!! are you really telling me it has happend now?? or nobody just didnt talked about that earlier???

[tiggie0307.livejournal.com]

That's...a lot of phones...

[seobyo.livejournal.com]

..I need to go to South Korea and get me a sexy phone...

South Korea only gives like the leftover phones to the United States... FML.

[moonishlips.livejournal.com]

Lol of course. JaeJoong has most of them.

[very86.livejournal.com]

LOOOOL xD

[hardcorxsooshee.livejournal.com]

they should bring their phones to america. the ones here suck. sooo ugly
-_____-

[talklikeazombie.livejournal.com]

THIS!
but still I'm so over flip phones

[zhoma.livejournal.com]

i decide to add one more phone.

[zhoma.livejournal.com]

i mean when i read this article.

[talklikeazombie.livejournal.com]

I-I wish I had a job lol.